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NIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEG 


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THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 

LA  JOLLA,  CALIFORNIA 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT   WOMAN 


BY  THE    SAME   AUTHOR 

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SPAIN 


THE  TRUTH 
ABOUT   WOMAN 


BY 

C.    GASQUOINE    HARTLEY 

(MRS.  WALTER  M.  GALLICHAN) 


NEW   YORK 

DODD,    MEAD    &    COMPANY 
1914 


RICHARD  CLAY  &  SONS,  LIMITED, 

BRUNSWICK  STREET,  STAMFORD  STKEET,  S.E. 

AND  BUNGAV,  SUFFOLK. 


DEDICATION 

TO 
LESLIE,  MY   LITTLE   ADOPTED   SON 

In  writing  at  last  this  book  on  Woman,  which  for  so 
many  years  has  had  a  place  in  my  thoughts,  one  truth  has 
forced  itself  upon  me  :  the  predominant  position  of  Woman 
in  her  natural  relation  to  the  race.  The  mother  is  the 
main  stream  of  the  racial  life.  All  the  hope  of  the  future 
rests  upon  this  faith  in  motherhood. 

To  whom,  then,  but  to  you,  my  little  son,  can  I  dedicate 
my  book  ?  You  came  to  me  when  I  was  still  seeking  out 
a  way  in  the  futility  of  Individual  ends ;  you  reconciled 
my  warring  motives  and  desires  ;  you  brought  me  a  new 
guiding  principle.  You  taught  me  that  the  Individual  Life 
is  but  :us  a  bubble  or  cluster  of  foam  on  the  great  tide  of 
humanity.  I  knew  that  the  redemption  of  Woman  rests  in 
the  growing  knowledge  and  consciousness  of  her  responsi- 
bility to  the  race. 


"The  social  revolution  which  is  impending  in  Europe  is 
chiefly  concerned  with  the  future  of  the  workers  and  the 
women.  It  is  for  this  that  I  hope  and  wait,  and  for  this  I 
will  work  with  all  my  powers." — IBSEN. 


PREFACE 

IT  is  very  difficult  to  write  a  preface  to  a  work 
which  is  expressly  intended  as  a  revelation  of  the  faith 
of  the  writer.  The  successive  stages  of  thought  and 
emotion  that  have  been  passed  through  are  still  too  near, 
and  one  feels  too  deeply.  I  have  made  several  futile 
attempts  to  concentrate  into  a  short  note  the  Truths  about 
Woman  that  I  have  tried  to  convey  in  my  book.  I  find 
it  impossible  to  do  this.  The  explanation  of  one's  own 
book  would  really  require  the  writing  of  another  book, 
as  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  has  proved  to  us  in  his  delightful 
prefaces.  But  to  do  this  one  must  be  freed  altogether 
from  the  limits  of  length  and  time.  The  fragments  of 
what  I  wish  to  say  would  be  of  no  service  to  any  one. 

I  then  tried  to  place  myself,  as  it  were,  outside  the 
book,  and  to  look  at  it  as  a  stranger  might.  But  the 
difficulties  here  were  even  greater.  I  grew  so  interested 
in  criticising  my  own  opinions  that  my  notes  soon  outran 
the  possibilities  of  a  preface.  In  this  spirit  of  genuine 
discrimination,  I  became  aware  how  easy  it  would  be  for 
any  one  who  does  not  share  my  faith  to  find  apparent 
contradictions  of  statement  and  errors  in  thought — much 
that  is  feeble  here,  extravagant  there;  to  notice  some 
salient  fault  and  to  take  it  as  decisive  of  the  writer's 
incompetence.  I  am  tempted  to  point  these  out  myself 
to  guide  and  protect  the  reader. 


Til 


viii  PREFACE 

Now  that  my  book  is  done  I  feel  that  I  have  touched 
only  the  veriest  fringe  of  a  vast  subject.  But  one  thing 
I  may  say,  I  have  tried  to  express  the  truth  as  I  have 
come  to  see  it.  The  conception  I  have  of  Woman  is 
not  new;  it  is  very  old.  And  for  that  reason  it  will  be 
rejected  by  many  women  to-day.  At  present  the  inspira- 
tion towards  freedom  in  the  Woman's  Movement  has 
involved  a  tendency  to  follow  individual  paths,  without 
waiting  to  consider  to  what  end  they  lead.  There  has 
arisen  a  sort  of  glamour  about  freedom.  No  one  of  us 
can  be  free,  for  no  one  of  us  stands  alone;  we  are  all 
members  one  of  another.  And  woman's  destiny  is  rooted 
in  the  race.  This,  rightly  considered,  is  the  most  vital 
of  all  vital  facts.  I  appeal  to  women  to  realise  more 
clearly  their  true  place  and  gifts,  as  representing  that 
original  racial  motherhood,  out  of  which  the  masculine 
and  feminine  characters  have  arisen. 

My  book  is  a  statement  of  my  faith  in  Woman  as  the 
predominant  and  responsible  partner  in  the  relations  of 
the  sexes.  To  such  a  belief  my  opinion  was  driven,  as 
it  were,  not  deliberately  set  from  the  beginning.  The 
time  when  the  resolve  to  write  a  book  upon  Woman  first 
took  a  place  in  my  thoughts  goes  back  for  many  years. 
The  child  of  a  Puritan  father,  who  died  for  the  faith 
in  which  he  believed,  the  desire  to  teach  was  born  in  my 
blood.  Our  character  is  forged  in  the  past,  we  cannot 
escape  our  inheritance.  I  began  my  work  as  the  head- 
mistress of  a  school  for  girls.  I  was  young  in  experience 
and  very  ignorant  of  life.  In  my  enthusiasm  I  was  quite 
unconscious  of  my  own  limitations.  I  believed  that  I 
was  able  to  train  up  a  new  type  of  free  woman.  Of 


PREFACE  ix 

course  I  failed.  Looking  back  now  I  wonder  if  I  ever 
taught  my  pupils  one-hundredth  part  of  what  they  taught 
me.  Perhaps  if  any  of  them,  separated  from  me  by  time 
and  circumstances,  chance  to  read  my  book,  they  may 
be  glad  to  know  that  it  was  largely  due  to  them  and 
what  I  learnt  from  them  that  it  has  come  to  be  written. 
Certainly  it  was  in  those  days,  when  saddened  by  my 
own  failures,  that  the  purpose  came  to  me,  dimly  but 
insistently,  to  seek  out  the  Truth  about  Woman  and  the 
relations  of  the  sexes.  I  began  to  read  and  to  collect 
material  at  first  for  my  own  guidance  and  instruction,  and 
as  a  necessary  preparation  for  my  work.  I  needed  it : 
I  must  have  been  slow  to  learn.  For  a  long  time  I 
wandered  in  the  wrong  path.  My  desire  was  to  find 
proofs  that  would  enable  me  to  ignore  all  those  facts 
of  woman's  organic  constitution  which  makes  her  unlike 
man.  I  stumbled  blindly  into  the  fatal  error  of  follow- 
ing masculine  ideals.  I  desired  freedom  for  women  to 
enable  them  to  live  the  same  lives  that  men  live  and  to 
do  the  same  work  that  men  do.  I  did  not  understand 
that  this  was  a  wastage  of  the  force  of  womanhood ;  that 
no  freedom  can  be  of  service  to  woman  unless  it  is  a 
freedom  to  follow  her  own  nature.  I  am  very  glad  that 
the  book  that  is  now  finished  was  not  written  in  that 
period  of  my  belief.  I  have  waited  and  I  have  lived. 

Five  years  ago  I  took  up  definitely  the  task  of  writing 
the  book.  At  that  time  the  plan  of  the  work  was  made 
and  the  first  Introductory  chapter  written.  Circumstances 
into  which  I  need  not  enter  caused  the  work  again  to  be 
put  aside.  T  am  glad  :  I  have  learnt  much  in  these  last 
years. 


x  PREFACE 

There  is  little  more  that  I  need  to  say. 

The  book  is  divided  into  three  parts — the  first 
biological,  the  second  historical.  These  two  parts  are 
preliminary  to  the  third  part,  which  deals  with  the 
present-day  aspects  of  the  Woman  Problem,  the  differ- 
ences between  woman  and  man,  and  the  relations  of  the 
sexes. 

This  arrangement  of  my  inquiry  into  three  parts  was 
necessary.  It  may  seem  to  some  that  I  should  have  done 
better  to  confine  my  investigations  to  the  present.  But 
the  claim  of  woman  for  freedom  is  rooted  deep  in  the 
past.  This  fact  had  to  be  established.  I  have  tried  to 
give  the  earlier  sections  such  lighter  qualities  and  interest 
as  would  commend  them  to  my  readers.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  for  me  to  say  I  can  make  no  claim  to  personal 
scientific  knowledge.  Probably  I  have  made  many 
mistakes. 

It  is  perhaps  foolish  to  make  apologies  for  work  that 
one  has  done.  But  the  inclusion  of  so  wide  a  field  has 
had  a  disadvantage.  My  investigations  may  be  objected 
to  as  in  certain  points  not  being  supported  by  sufficient 
proof.  I  know  this.  My  stacks  of  unused  notes  remind 
me  of  how  much  I  have  had  to  leave  out.  This  is 
especially  the  case  in  the  final  part.  The  subject  of 
every  chapter  treated  here  could  easily  form  a  volume 
in  itself.  I  hope  that  at  least  I  have  opened  up  sug- 
gestions of  many  questions  on  which  I  could  not  dwell 
at  length. 

Some  remarks  may  be  necessary  as  to  the  nature  of 
my  material.  It  has  been  drawn  from  a  variety  of  sources. 
I  have  tried  to  acknowledge  in  footnotes  the  great  amount 


PREFACE  xi 

of  help  I  have  received.  But  my  notes  have  been  taken 
during  many  years,  and  if  any  acknowledgment  has  been 
forgotten,  it  is  my  memory  that  is  at  fault,  and  not  my 
gratitude.  The  Bibliography  (which  has  been  drawn  up 
chiefly  from  the  works  I  have  consulted,  and  is  merely 
representative)  will  show  how  many  fields  there  are  from 
which  the  student  may  glean.  In  particular  I  am  indebted 
to  the  works  of  Havelock  Ellis,  of  Iwan  Bloch  and 
Ellen  Key.  To  these  writers  I  would  express  my 
warmest  thanks  for  the  help  and  guidance  I  have  gained 
from  their  work. 

The  opinions  expressed  are  in  all  cases  my  own.  I 
say  this  without  any  apology  of  modesty.  I  hold  that 
the  one  justification  of  writing  a  book  at  all  is  to  state 
those  truths  one  has  learnt  from  one's  own  experience 
of  life.  For  we  can  give  to  others  only  what  we  have 
received  ourselves ;  the  vision  rising  in  our  own  eyes,  the 
passion  born  in  our  own  hearts. 

C.  GASQUOINE  HARTLEY. 

7,  Carlton  Terrace, 
Child's  Hill,  N.W. 

March,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

N.B. — A  complete  synopsis  of  confetti s  will  be  found  at  the 
beginning  of  each  chapter 

CHAf.  PACE 

I     INTRODUCTION — THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY        i 

PART   I— BIOLOGICAL  SECTION 
II    THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  SEXES 31 

III  GROWTH  AND  REPRODUCTION         .        .        .        .        .      45 

I     The  Early  Position  of  the  Sexes. 
II     Two  Examples— The  Beehive  and  the  Spider. 

IV  THE  EARLY  RELATIONSHIP  OF  THE  SEXES     .        .        .71 
V    COURTSHIP,  MARRIAGE,  AND  THE  FAMILY      .      >«        .      85 

I     Among  the  Birds  and  Mammals. 

II     Further   Examples   of  Courtship,  Marriage,   and  the  Family 
among  Birds. 

PART   II— HISTORICAL  SECTION 
VI    THE  MOTHER- AGE  CIVILISATION 117 

I     Progress    from    Lower    to    Higher    Forms    of   the    Family 

Relationship. 
II     The  Matriarchal  Family  in  America. 

III  Further   Examples  of  the  Matriarchal   Family  in  Australia, 

India,  and  other  Countries. 

IV  The  Transition  to  Father-right. 

VII     WOMAN'S   POSITION    IN  THE  GREAT   CIVILISATIONS    OF 

ANTIQUITY 177 

I     In  Egypt. 
II     In  Babylon. 

III  In  Greece. 

IV  In  Rome. 

nil 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PART    III— MODERN    SECTION:   PRESENT-DAY 
ASPECTS   OF  THE   WOMAN   PROBLEM 

CHAT.  PACK 

VIII    SEX  DIFFERENCES  .  ...  .     245 

IX     APPLICATION  'to  THE  FOREGOING  CHAPTER  WITH  SOME 

FURTHER  REMARKS  ON  SEX  DIFFERENCE     ,.        .     271 
I     Women  and  Labour. 
II     Sexual    Differences   in   Mind    and    the   Artistic   Impulse   in 

Women. 

Ill     The  Affectability  of  Woman   -Its  Connection  with  the  Religious 
Impulse. 

X    THE  SOCIAL  FORMS  OF  THE  SEXUAL  RELATIONSHIP       .     329 

I     Marriage. 
II     Divorce. 
Ill     Prostitution. 

XI     THE  END  OF  THE  INQUIRY    .        .        .  ,        .    375 


\ 


CONTENTS   OF    CHAPTER    I 

INTRODUCTION THE    STARTING-POINT    OF    THE    INQUIRY 

The  twentieth  century  the  age  of  hurrying  progress — The  change  in 
the  position  of  women — Reasons  for  the  revolution — First  efforts 
towards  emancipation — Outlook  of  the  Woman  Movement — Its 
fundamental  error — Possibilities  of  future  development — Mother- 
hood and  the  Woman  Movement — Schopenhauer's  view  of  woman — 
He  asserts  an  absurdity — The  predominance  of  man  over  woman 
not  to  be  regarded  as  a  natural  and  inviolable  law — An  examina- 
tion of  the  mastery  of  the  male — Can  we  look  forward  to  a  remedy  ? — 
Our  own  time  a  turning-point  in  the  history  of  women — Assumed 
inferiority  of  the  female  sex — Necessity  for  biological  knowledge 
in  forming  an  estimate  of  the  present  sex-relationship — Two  kinds 
of  influences  to  be  considered — Nature  and  Nurture — The  different 
play  of  the  environmental  forces,  or  Nurture,  upon  women  and 
upon  men — The  importance  of  Nature — Galton's  Law  of  Inherit- 
ance— Woman's  responsibility  as  race-bearer — Sexual  differences 
between  the  female  and  the  male — Primitive  woman  and  her 
position  in  early  civilisations — Remarks  and  conclusion — The 
immense  importance  of  motherhood. 


CHAPTER    I 

INTRODUCTION THE    STARTING-POINT    OF    THE    INQUIRY 

"  The  method  of  investigating  truth  commonly  pursued  at  this 
time,  therefore,  is  to  be  held  erroneous  and  almost  foolish,  in  which  so 
many  inquire  what  others  have  said,  and  omit  to  ask  whether  the 
things  themselves  be  actually  so  or  not." — WILLIAM  HARVEY. 

THE  twentieth  century  will,  we  may  well  believe,  be 
stamped  in  the  records  of  the  future  as  "the  age  of 
hurrying  change."  In  certain  directions  this  change  has 
resulted  in  a  profounder  transformation  of  thought  than 
has  been  effected  by  all  the  preceding  centuries.  Never, 
probably,  in  the  history  of  the  world  were  the  meanings 
and  ambitions  of  progress  so  prevalent  as  they  are  to-day. 
Aii  energy  of  inquiry  and  an  endless  curiosity  is  sweeping 
away  the  complacent  Victorian  attitude,  which  in  its 
secure  faith  and  tranquil  self-confidence  accepted  the 
conditions  of  living  without  question  and  without  emo- 
tion. Stripped  of  its  masks,  this  phase  of  individual 
egoism  was  perhaps  the  most  villainous  page  of  recorded 
human  history;  yet,  with  strange  confidence,  it  regarded 
itself  as  the  very  summit  of  civilisation.  It  may  be  that 
such  a  phase  was  necessary  before  the  awakening  of  a 
social  conscience  could  arise.  Old  conceptions  have 
become  foolish  in  a  New  Age.  A  great  motive,  an 
enlarging  dream,  a  quickening  understanding  of  social 
responsibility,  these  are  what  we  have  gained. 

Above  all,  this  common  Faith  of  Progress  has  brought 

B  2  3 


4  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

a  new  birth  to  women.  Many  are  feeling  this  force. 
There  are  two,  says  Professor  Karl  Pearson,1  and  it  might 
almost  be  said  only  two  great  problems  of  modern  social 
life — they  are  the  problem  of  woman  and  the  problem 
of  labour.  Regarded  with  fear  by  many,  they  are  for 
the  younger  generation  the  sole  motors  in  life,  and  the 
only  party  cries  which  in  the  present  can  arouse  enthus- 
iasm, self-sacrifice,  and  a  genuine  freemasonry  of  class 
and  sex. 

There  is  something  almost  staggering  in  the  range  and 
greatness  of  the  changes  in  belief  and  feeling,  in  intel- 
lectual conclusions  and  social  habits,  which  are  now  dis- 
turbing the  female  part  of  humankind.  How  complete 
is  the  divorce  between  the  attitude  of  the  woman  of  this 
generation  towards  society  and  herself,  and  that  of  the 
generation  that  has  passed — yes,  passed  as  completely 
as  if  hundreds  and  not  units  represent  the  years  that 
separate  it  from  the  present. 

It  is  instructive  to  note  in  passing  what  was  written 
about  woman  at  the  time  immediately  preceding  the 
present  revolt  of  the  sex.  The  virtue  upon  which  most 
stress  was  laid  was  that  of  "  delicacy,"  a  word  which 
occurs  with  nauseous  frequency  in  the  books  written 
both  by  women  and  men  in  the  two  last  centuries.2  "  Pro- 
priety," wrote  Mrs.  Hannah  More,  "  is  to  a  woman  what 
the  great  Roman  citizen  said  action  is  to  an  orator :  it  is 
the  first,  the  second,  and  the  third  requisite." 3 

"  Woman  and  Labour,"  The  Chances  of  Death,  Vol.  I.  p.  226. 

2  Quoted  from  The  Emancipation  of  English  Women,  by  W.  Lyon 
Blease,  a  book  which  gives  an  unbiased,  and  in  many  respects  excellent, 
account  of  the  struggle  of  English  women  to  gain  freedom  from  the 
seventeenth  century  to  the  present  day. 

8  Strictures,  I.  6,  Gregory. 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY     5 

"This  delicacy  or  propriety,"  it  has  been  well  said,1  "implied 
not  only  modesty,  but  ignorance ;  and  not  only  decency  of  con- 
duct, but  false  decency  of  mind.  Nothing  was  to  be  thoroughly 
known,  nothing  to  be  frankly  expressed.  The  vicious  concealment 
was  not  confined  to  physical  facts,  but  pervaded  all  forms  of 
knowledge.  Not  only  must  the  girl  be  kept  ignorant  of  the 
principles  of  physiology,  but  she  must  also  abstain  from  penetrat- 
ing thoroughly  into  the  mysteries  of  history,  of  politics,  of  science, 
and  of  philosophy.  Even  her  special  province  of  religion  must  be 
lightly  surveyed.  She  was  not  required  to  think  for  herself, 
therefore  she  was  deprived  of  all  training  which  would  enable  her 
to  think  at  all.  The  girl  must  appear  to  be  dependent  upon  the 
mental  strength  of  a  man,  as  well  as  upon  his  physical  strength." 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  this  attitude  if  we  are  to 
understand  the  direction  that  woman's  emancipation  has 
largely — and,  as  some  of  us  think,  mistakenly — taken  in 
this  country.  It  explains  the  demand  for  equality  of 
opportunity  with  men,  which  has  become  the  watch-cry 
of  so  many  women,  thinking  that  here  was  the  way  to 
solve  the  problem.  A  cry  good  and  right  in  itself,  but 
one  which  is  a  starting-point  only  for  woman's  freedom, 
and  can  never  be  its  end. 

Little  more  than  fifty  years  have  passed  since  Miss 
Jex-Blake  undertook  her  memorable  fight  to  obtain 
medical  training  for  herself  and  her  colleagues  at  the 
University  of  Edinburgh.2  At  about  the  same  time  arose 
women's  demand  for  the  right  of  higher  education,  and 
colleges  for  women  were  opened  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge. These  were  the  practical  results  which  followed 
the  revolt  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  and  later,  the  great 

1  The  Emancipation  of  English  Women. 

1  For  an  account  of  this  struggle  see  Sketch  of  the  Foundation  and 
Development  of  the  London  School  of  Medicine  for  Women,  by  Isabel 
Thorne ;  also  The  Emancipation  of  English  Women. 


6  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

revival   due  to   the  publication  of  John   Stuart   Mill's 
epoch-marking  book,  the  Subjection  of  Women. 

During  the  first  period  of  the  woman's  movement  the 
centre  of  restlessness  was  amongst  unmarried  women, 
who  rebelled  at  the  old  restrictions,  eager  for  self- 
development  and  a  more  intellectually  active  life.  These 
women  undertook  their  own  cause,  insisting  that  their 
humanity  came  before  their  sex.  They  were  picked 
women,  much  above  the  average  woman,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  abnormal  in  so  far  as  they  denied  the  important 
factor  of  sex.  To  them  the  average  male  was  not  a  sub- 
ject of  overwhelming  interest,  and  marriage  and  mother- 
hood were  not  of  prominent  importance  in  their  thought. 
For  them  "  equality  of  opportunity  for  women  with  men  " 
seemed  to  solve  the  problem  of  woman's  emancipation. 
The  constructive  result  of  their  campaign  was  the  win- 
ning of  the  higher  education  of  woman,  the  right  to  work, 
and  the  rush  of  women  into  the  professions.  Much, 
indeed,  was  gained,  though  it  may  be  said  with  equal 
truth  that  much  was  lost.  With  this  solution — the 
increased  power  of  self-realisation  in  a  narrow  class  of 
picked  women,  chiefly  unmarried  women  of  the  middle- 
class — the  woman's  movement  might  well  begin,  but  in 
this  alone  it  can  never  end.  The  movement  was  incom- 
plete as  far  as  woman's  emancipation  went,  because  it 
was  won  by  ignoring  sex.  In  spite  of  the  great  advance 
in  freedom  and  in  scope  of  activity  of  life,  the  stigma 
attached  to  woman  was  not  removed.  To-day  we  have 
arrived  at  a  point  where  instead  of  ignoring  sex  we  must 
affirm  it,  and  claim  emancipation  on  the  ground  of  our 
sex  alone.  Our  mothers  taught  acceptance,  and  asked 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY    7 

for  privileges;  the  pioneers  of  revolt  raised  the  cry 
"acceptance  is  a  sin  and  all  privilege  evil";  we,  the 
blood  in  our  veins  beating  more  strongly  and  understand- 
ing at  last  the  true  inwardness  of  our  power,  found  our 
claim  for  complete  emancipation  upon  that  special  work 
in  the  world  and  for  the  State  which  our  differentiation 
from  men  imposes  upon  us.  This  differentiation  is  our 
potentiality  for  motherhood,  and  is  the  endowment  of 
every  woman,  whether  realised  or  not.  We  claim  as  our 
glory  what  our  mothers  accepted  as  their  burden  of 
shame. 

No  sudden  causeless  changes  ever  happen,  or  ever 
have  happened.  And  the  question,  Why  ?  arises.  What 
is  this  dynamic  force  which  has  been,  and  is  still  sweeping 
in  a  great  wave  of  emancipation  across  the  civilised  world, 
joining  women  in  one  common  purpose  ?  On  the  outside 
the  revolutionary  character  of  women's  modern  thought 
and  modern  practice  means  nothing  more  than  that  they 
claim  the  rights  of  adult  human  beings — political  en- 
franchisement, the  right  of  education  and  freedom  to 
work.  But  the  facts  are  far  too  complex  to  enable  us 
thus  to  rush  hastily  to  an  answer.  There  is  a  pitiful 
monotony  in  much  that  is  written  and  spoken  about 
women's  emancipation.  The  real  causes  are  deep  to 
seek,  and  not  infrequently  they  have  been  missed  even 
by  those  who  have  been  most  instrumental  in  bringing 
a  new  hope  to  women.  The  most  advanced  women 
champions,  the  martyrs  of  revolt,  show  no  greater  sense 
of  the  meanings  and  issues  of  the  struggle  in  which  they 
are  engaged  than  the  complaisant  supporters  of  the  worn- 
out  customs  they  combat.  They  exhibit  only  the  energies 


8  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

of  an  admirable  impulse,  without  the  control  of  a  guiding 
law.  Speculation,  which  should  be  carried  to  a  compre- 
hension of  general  facts,  is  concentrated  upon  the  imme- 
diate gain  of  the  hour.  The  tendency  is  to  trifle  with 
truth,  and  to  disguise  its  reach  and  consequences.  We 
have  read,  and  spoken,  and  thought  so  much  about  the 
special  character  of  woman  that  we  have  become  almost 
wearied  of  the  subject.  Like  Narcissus,  we  stand  in 
some  danger  of  falling  in  love  with  our  own  image. 
Perhaps  the  truth  is  we  speculate  too  much  instead  of 
trying  to  find  out  the  facts.  The  woman  question  is 
as  old  as  sex  itself  and  as  young  as  mankind. 

The  future  position  of  woman  in  society  is  a  question 
that  carries  with  it  biological  and  psychological,  as  well 
as  social  and  practical,  issues  of  the  widest  significance, 
and  further,  it  is  bound  up  intimately  with  the  pro- 
foundest  riddles  of  existence.  The  problems  remain  to 
a  great  extent  unsolved.  But  the  conviction  forces  itself 
that  the  emancipation  of  woman  will  ultimately  involve 
a  revolution  in  many  of  our  social  institutions.  It  is 
this  that  brings  fear  to  many.  Yet  we  must  remember 
that  woman's  emancipation  is  no  new  movement,  but  has 
always  been  with  us,  although  with  varying  prominence 
at  different  times  in  history.  In  the  past,  civilisations 
have  fallen,  in  part  at  least,  because  they  failed  to 
develop  in  equal  freedom  their  women  with  their  men. 
It  is  also  certain  that  no  civilisation  in  the  future  can 
remain  the  highest  if  another  civilisation  adds  to  the 
intelligence  of  its  male  population  the  intelligence  of  its 
women.  This  in  itself  is  enough  to  condemn  all  ideas 
of  sex  inequality. 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY     9 

The  struggle  for  the  Suffrage  has  intensified  many 
problems  which  it  will  take  all  the  intellectual  and 
emotional  energy  of  both  men  and  women  to  solve.  Up 
till  now  there  has  been  little  more  than  a  fight  for  mere 
rights  against  male  monopolies.  In  the  near  future  this 
struggle  must  lead  to  a  realisation  of  the  duties  of  woman, 
founded  on  a  level-headed  facing  of  the  physiological 
realities  of  her  nature.  It  is  a  complete  disregard  of 
sexualogical  difficulties  which  renders  so  superficial  and 
unconvincing  much  of  the  talk  which  proceeds  from  the 
"  Woman's  Rights "  platform.  All  efforts  made  to 
understand  the  sex  problem,  which  is  the  woman  question, 
must  be  based  on  the  full  knowledge  of  the  physical 
capacity  of  woman  and  the  effect  that  her  emancipation 
will  have  on  her  function  of  race  production.  All  effort 
ought  to  be  directed  towards  the  future  welfare  and 
happiness  of  the  children  who  are  to  follow  us.  This 
is  the  goal  of  woman's  struggle  for  progress,  it  is  the  sole 
end  worthy  of  it. 

To  assume  as  Schopenhauer  and  so  many  others  have 
done,  down  to  Sir  Almroth  Wright's  recent  hysterical 
wail  in  The  Times,  that  woman,  on  account  of  her 
womanhood  is  incapable  of  intellectual  or  social  develop- 
ment, paying  her  sole  debt  of  Nature  in  bearing  and 
caring  for  children,  is  really  to  state  a  belief  in  decay 
for  humankind.  Any  stigma  attached  to  women  is  really 
a  stigma  attached  to  their  potentiality  as  mothers,  and 
we  can  only  remove  it  by  beginning  with  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  actual  mother.  No  sharp  cleavage  can  be 
made  between  qualities  that  are  good  and  masculine  on 
the  one  side,  and  all  that  is  feminine  on  the  other.  The 


10  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

view  is  entirely  erroneous.  How,  for  instance,  can  ignor- 
ance and  weakness  constitute  at  once  the  perfection  of 
womankind,  and  the  imperfection  of  mankind?  The 
matter  is  not  so  simple.  Man  must  fall  with  woman,  and 
rise  with  her. 

My  first  purpose  is  to  make  this  clear. 

To-day  we  are  faced  with  the  question  whether  the  pre- 
dominance of  man  over  woman  is  to  be  regarded  as  a 
natural,  and  therefore  inviolable,  law  of  the  male  and 
female.    Some  will  deny  this  mastery  of  the  male.    It  may 
be  said  that  woman  sways  man  more  than  he  rules  her. 
This  is  true.    The  influence  of  woman  is  important — fear- 
fully important.    Yet  the  fitting  answer  to  such  glossing — 
if  it  be  necessary  really  to  point  out  that  sexual  privilege 
is  not  personal  power — is  that  such  government  is  exer- 
cised in  one  direction  alone,  and  arises  not  from  woman's 
strength,  but  out  of  her  subjection.     Women  have  ren- 
dered back  to  men  the  ill  that  this  long  sex  domination 
has  wrought  upon  them.      None  the  less  have  we  to 
reckon  with  the  despotism  of  the  male  side  of  life.     '  The 
softening   influence   of    woman ! "...  It   is   a   pretty 
phrase;  but  all  the  same  women  and  men  have  been 
doing   their   best  to   degrade   each  other   to   a   pitiful 
mediocrity.     It  is  not  the  purifying  influence  of  women 
— the  theory  of  chivalrous  moralists — but  an  unguided 
and  therefore  deteriorating  sexual  tyranny  that  regulates 
society.     Let  us  have  done  with  this  absurd  catch-phrase 
of  "Woman's  Influence."     No  influence  worth  naming 
as  such  can  be  exercised  but  by  an  independent  mind. 
Women  need  better  fields  for  the  exercise  of  their  love 
of  power.    The  sexual  sphere,  which  has  shaped  an  im- 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY   11 

palpable  prison  around  them,  has  barred  them  from  that 
part  of  life  which  is  social  and  broadly  human ;  the  falsely 
feminine  has  been  developed  to  the  loss  of  the  woman- 
hood in  them.  It  is  only  in  obedience  to  man  that  woman 
has  gained  her  power  of  life.  She  has  borne  children 
at  his  will  and  for  his  pleasure.  She  has  received  her 
very  consciousness  from  man  :  this  has  been  her  woman- 
hood, to  feel  herself  under  another's  will.  There  is  no 
possible  hiding  of  the  truth;  if  women  influence  men, 
men  command  life. 

But  is  it  possible,  looking  forward  to  new  conditions 
of  society,  now  approaching  like  a  long-delayed  spring, 
to  foresee  a  remedy?  Can  the  woman  of  the  future 
belong  to  herself?  What  are  her  natural  disabilities, 
and  to  what  extent  are  they  modifiable  by  new  arrange- 
ments of  social  and  domestic  life  ?  Must  she  be  content 
for  the  future  with  that  dependence  on  the  individual 
man  which  has  been  her  fate  in  the  past ;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  can  she  take  up  her  economic  and  social  position 
in  society  and  work  therein  for  her  own  maintenance  as 
free  from  considerations  of  her  sex  as  a  man  can  ?  These 
are  the  questions  which  must  be  faced  when  united 
womanhood  begins  to  formulate  their  wants  and  to  realise 
their  power.  It  is  almost  idle  in  the  present  transition 
to  speculate  as  to  what  women  should  or  should  not  be, 
or  the  work  they  should  or  should  not  do.  Women  do 
not  yet  know  what  they  want.  All  that  can  be  done  is 
to  note  the  changes  that  are  taking  place,  for  we  cannot, 
even  do  we  wish,  now  change  the  revolutionary  forces. 
We  must  seek  to  understand  their  causes,  so  that  we  may 
be  able  to  direct  them  in  the  future  in  such  ways  as  will 


12  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

tend  to  the  greater  solidarity  and  happiness  of  women 
and  men. 

In  the  everlasting  controversy  as  to  woman's  place  in 
Nature  the  majority  of  arguments  have  been  based  on  an 
assumed  inferiority  of  the  female  sex.  Appeal  has  been 
made  to  anatomy  to  establish  the  difference  between  the 
natural  endowment  of  men  and  women  in  the  hope  of 
fixing  by  means  of  anatomical  measurements  and  tests 
those  characters  of  males  and  females  that  are  unalter- 
able, because  inborn,  and  those  that  are  acquired,  and 
therefore  modifiable.  But  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
anatomical  investigations  are  very  great,  if  only  on 
account  of  the  complexity  of  the  material.  Often  and 
often  it  has  happened  that  old  conclusions  have  been 
overthrown  by  new  knowledge.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said 
that  such  appeal  has  resulted  in  uncertainty,  and  in  many 
instances  in  confusion.  The  chief  source  of  error  has 
been  the  careless  acceptance  of  female  inferiority,  which 
has  maimed  most  investigations  and  seriously  retarded 
the  attainment  of  useful  results.  And  though  it  is  very 
far  from  my  purpose  to  wish  to  deny  the  fundamentally 
different  nature  of  the  masculine  and  feminine  character, 
it  is  still  true  that  a  blank  separation  of  human  qualities 
into  male  qualities  and  female  qualities  is  no  longer  pos- 
sible. In  no  instance  have  the  anatomists  succeeded  in 
determining  with  absolute  distinction  between  the  char- 
acters that  belong  separately  to  the  sexes.  Moreover,  it 
has  been  shown  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  fixed 
woman  character,  but  that  women  differ  according  to  the 
circumstances  under  which  they  live,  just  as  men  differ. 
This  brings  us  directly  against  the  old  problem,  in- 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY    13 

feriority  cannot  be  accepted  as  the  sole  reason  of  woman's 
present  restricted  position  in  society.  Other  causes  must 
be  sought  for. 

Many  features  of  the  social  and  psychic  as  well  as  the 
physical  phenomena  of  human  life  have  what  we  may 
call  an  organismal  mainspring,  and  become  more  intelli- 
gible when  traced  back  to  these.     No  one,  for  instance, 
can  appreciate  the  social  significance  of  sex,  or  account 
for  the  existing  sexual  relationships  in  human  societies, 
who  does  not  know  something  of  their  biological  ante- 
cedents.    Take  again  the  sex  differences,  which  attain 
to  such  complexity  and  importance  in  the  human  civilised 
races,  these  can  be  explained  only  if  their  origin  is  recog- 
nisable.    To  comprehend  the  higher  forms  of  life  we 
must  gain  an  acquaintance  with  the  lower  and  more 
formative  types.     In  this  way  we  shall  begin  to  see  some- 
thing of  that  continual  upward  change  under  the  action 
of  love's-selection  that  has  developed  the  female  and 
the  male.     Many  problems  that  have  brought  sorrow  and 
perplexity  to  us  to-day  will  become  recognisable  as  we 
ascertain  their  causes,  and  then  we   can  do  much  to 
remove  them.     Thus  the  problem  of  woman  must  first  be 
considered  from  a  biological  point  of  view.     Explora- 
tions must  be  made  into  the  remote  and  obscure  begin- 
nings of  sex.     We  must  carry  our  investigations  back 
beyond  the  cycle  of  man,  and  trace  the  growth  and  uses 
of  the  differentiation  of  the  sexes  from  the  lowest  forms 
of  life. 

Biology,  a  science  hardly  more  than  a  century  old,  is 
still  in  the  descriptive  and  comparative  stage;  it  is  the 
scientific  study  of  the  present  and  past  history  of  animal 


14  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

life  for  the  purpose  of  understanding  its  future  history. 
It  is  of  vital  importance  to  human  welfare  in  the  future 
that  we  should  learn  by  this  comparative  study  of  origins 
and  of  the  potent  past  what  are  the  lines  along  which 
progress  is  to  be  expected. 

This,  then,  will  be  the  first  path  of  our  discovery.  We 
shall  have  to  traverse  many  past  ages  of  life  and  to  con- 
sider certain  humble  organisms,  before  we  shall  be  able 
really  to  understand  woman  in  her  true  position  in  the 
sexual  relationship  as  we  find  it  to-day. 

But  the  possibility  of  applying  biological  results  to 
sociology  with  any  hope  of  enlightenment  depends  on  an 
understanding  of  the  questions,  How?  and  Why?  It  is 
important  to  know  what  the  phenomena  are,  but  it  is 
yet  more  important  to  know  how  ?  and  for  what  reason  ? 
they  have  come  about.  Thus  we  are  led  forward  always 
from  facts  to  their  efficient  causes.  Women  are  found 
to  differ  from  men  in  this  or  that  respect.  But  this  in 
itself  decides  nothing.  As  soon  as  we  are  informed  as 
to  any  one  difference,  we  must  seek  out  its  cause;  and 
this  we  must  do  over  and  over  again.  Hundreds  of 
women  must  be  interrogated,  observed  and  reported  upon 
— and  then  what?  Shall  we  know  the  answer  to  our 
problem?  Certainly  not  In  each  case  we  must  ask: 
Is  this  difference  we  have  found  between  the  sexes  a 
natural  inborn  quality  of  woman,  whether  it  be  physical 
or  psychical,  that  must  be  regarded  as  a  right  and  unalter- 
able part  of  her  woman  character,  or  is  it  an  acquired, 
and  therefore  changeable,  modification  that  has  been 
superimposed  upon  her  through  the  artificial  sexual, 
social  and  economic  circumstances  of  her  environment? 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY   15 

The  mere  asking  of  this  question  will  give  many  new 
discoveries. 

Life  is  a  relation  between  two  forces  :  on  the  one  hand 
the  organism  and  on  the  other  the  external  conditions 
that  form  the  environment  These  two  processes  are 
known  as  Nature  and  Nurture,  they  are  complementary 
and  inseparable,  and  they  act  together.  Thus  the  organ- 
ism modifies  its  surroundings,  and  is  in  turn  modified 
by  them.  But  every  life  possesses  in  great  degree  the 
power  of  self-adaptation,  and,  broadly  speaking,  it  is 
true  that  no  matter  under  what  conditions  it  may  be  com- 
pelled to  live,  it  will  mould  its  own  life  into  harmony 
with  those  conditions  and  thus  continue  its  existence,  and 
this  whether  it  is  compelled  to  adopt  a  more  perfect  or 
a  less  perfect  character.  It  becomes  evident  that  an 
appropriate  environment  is  necessary  if  the  Nature  is  to 
be  expressed,  or  expressed  fully;  otherwise  life  cannot 
realise  development.  The  environment  is  constantly 
checking  and  modifying  the  inheritance.  Nurture  sup- 
plies the  liberating  stimulus  to  the  inheritance,  and 
growth  is  limited,  in  exact  measurement  by  the  Nurture 
stimuli  available.  Human  advancement  is,  of  course, 
widely  different  from  the  slow  progress  in  the  lower 
forms  of  life,  but  it  is  fundamentally  the  same.  Experi- 
ence is  continually  spreading  over  new  fields  and  bring- 
ing about  a  more  wide  and  exact  relation  between  the 
individual  and  the  external  world.  It  follows  that  any 
change  in  the  environment  will  cause  a  change  in  the 
individual.  To  live  differently  from  what  one  had  been 
living  is  to  be  different  from  what  one  has  been.  These 
are  simple  biological  facts. 


16  THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

Now,  how  does  woman  stand  in  this  respect?  No 
one  can  deny  the  difference  of  environment  that  in  the 
past  has  acted  on  women  and  on  men.  Speaking  from 
a  biological  standpoint,  it  would  seem  that  any  present 
inferiority  of  woman  is  mainly  social,  due  to  her  adapta- 
tion to  an  arbitrary  environment.  It  has  been  truly  said  J 
that  "man,  in  supporting  woman,  has  become  her 
economic  environment."  By  her  position  of  economic 
dependence  in  the  sex  relation,  sex  distinction  has 
become  with  her  "  not  only  a  means  of  attracting  a  mate, 
as  with  all  creatures,  but  a  means  of  gaining  her  liveli- 
hood, as  is  the  case  with  no  other  creature  under  heaven." 
Can  we  wonder  that  the  differences  between  the  sexes 
assume  such  great  and,  in  certain  directions,  such 
unnatural  importance?  Woman  to  a  far  greater  extent 
than  man  is  in  process  of  evolution;  her  powers  dormant 
for  want  of  liberating  Nurture  stimuli.  We  know  that 
Alpine  plants  brought  from  their  natural  soil  change 
their  character  and  become  hardly  recognisable,  and 
these  marked  modifications  will  reappear  in  many 
generations  of  plants,  but  as  soon  as  the  plants  are  taken 
back  to  grow  in  their  natural  environment  they  are  trans- 
formed to  their  original  Alpine  forms.  May  we  not  then 
entertain  as  a  possibility  that  woman's  modern  character, 
with  all  its  acknowledged  faults — all  its  separation  from 
the  human  qualities  of  man — is  a  veneer  imposed  by  an 
unnatural  environment  on  succeeding  generations  of 
women?  If  the  larger  social  virtues  are  wanting  in  her, 
may  it  not  be  because  they  have  not  been  called  for 

1  Woman  and  Economics,  Mrs.  Stetson,  p.  38. 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY   17 

in  a  parasitic  life?  How  splendid  a  hope  for  women 
rests  here !  There  is  a  biological  truth,  not  usually- 
suspected  by  those  who  quote  it,  in  the  popular  saying  : 
"  Man  is  the  creature  of  circumstance."  And  this  is 
even  more  true  of  women,  who  are  less  emancipated 
from  their  surroundings  than  are  men — more  saturated 
with  the  influences  and  prejudices  of  their  narrowed 
environment. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  Nurture  is  more  important 
than  Nature  in  seeking  to  explain  the  character  of  woman 
to-day.  Yet,  let  me  not  be  mistaken,  nor  let  it  be  thought 
for  one  moment  that  I  do  not  realise  the  importance  of 
Nature.  The  first  right  of  every  human  being  is  the  right 
of  being  well-born.  This  is  the  goal  of  all  our  struggles 
for  progress — it  is  the  sole  end  worthy  of  them. 

Let  me  try  to  make  this  clearer. 

Reproduction  carries  life  beyond  the  individual. 
Haeckel  has  said  that  the  process  is  nothing  more  than 
the  growth  of  the  organism  beyond  its  individual  mass. 
But  this  process  in  the  higher  forms  of  life  has  become 
exceedingly  complex.  All  living  beings  are  individual 
in  one  respect  and  composite  in  another,  for  the  inherit- 
ance of  each  individual  is  a  mosaic  of  ancestral  con- 
tributions. Gallon's  Law  of  Inheritance  makes  this 
abundantly  clear.  Briefly  stated,  the  law  is  as  follows  : 
The  two  parents  of  each  living  being  contribute  on  the 
average  one-half  of  each  inherited  quality,  each  of  them 
contributing  one-quarter  of  it.  The  four  grand-parents 
furnish  between  them  one-quarter,  or  each  of  them  one- 
sixteenth  ;  and  so  on  backwards  through  past  generations 
of  ancestors.  Now,  though,  of  course,  these  numbers 


18  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

are  purely  arbitrary,  applying  only  to  averages,  and 
rarely  true  exactly  of  individual  cases,  where  the  pre- 
potency of  any  one  ancestor  may,  and  often  does,  upset 
the  balance  of  the  contributions  made  by  the  other 
ancestors,  it  may  certainly  be  accepted  as  the  most  prob- 
able theory  that  biology  has  given  us  to  explain  the 
grand-parents,  great-grand-parents,  great-great-grand  - 
difficult  problem  of  Nature — that  is  the  inheritance  we 
receive  from  our  ancestors. 

We  see  that  the  heredity  relation  is  an  extremely 
complex  affair.  It  is  not  merely  dual  from  the  parents ; 
but  it  is  multiple,  through  them  reaching  back  to  the 
parents,  and  so  on  backwards  indefinitely.  It  is,  indeed, 
a  mosaic  of  many,  yes,  of  uncountable,  contributions. 
The  Life  Force  gathering  within  itself  these  multiple 
sets  of  heredity  contributions  is  like  capital  ever  growing 
at  compound  interest.  The  importance  of  this  is  abun- 
dantly clear.  For  as  we  come  to  understand  the  con- 
tinuity of  our  inheritance  from  generation  to  generation 
we  realise  more  vividly  how  the  past  has  a  living  hand 
on  and  in  the  present,  and  how  that  present  will  be 
carried  on  to  the  future.  We  are  all  links  in  the  one 
mighty  Chain  of  Life,  and  on  us,  and  upon  women 
especially,  rests  a  high  responsibility.  We  must  hand 
on  our  past  inheritance  unimpaired,  so  that  the  new  link 
forged  by  us  may  strengthen  and  not  weaken  the  chain. 
It  is  the  duty  of  every  woman  as  a  potential  mother  of 
men  to  choose  a  fitting  father  for  her  children,  having 
first  educated  herself  for  a  freer  and  more  capable 
maternity.  In  the  past  she  has  done  this  blindly,  follow- 
ing the  Life  Force  without  understanding,  or  hindered 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY   19 

from  her  purpose  by  the  artificial  conditions  of  society. 
In  the  future  such  blindness  and  such  failure  of  her 
powers  will  alike  be  regarded  as  sin.  With  full  know- 
ledge, woman  will  fulfil  her  great  central  purpose  of 
breeding  the  race — ay,  breeding  it  to  heights  now  deemed 
impossible,  not  dreamt  of  even  by  those  of  us  who  look 
forward  through  the  darkness  to  the  clear  sunlight  of  that 
time  when  the  sex  relation  shall  be  freed  from  economic 
pressure  and  from  all  coercion  of  a  false  morality,  and 
the  universal  creative  energy,  no  longer  finding  gratifica- 
tion alone  in  personal  ends,  shall  at  last  reach  its  goal 
and  give  birth  to  a  race  of  new  women  and  new  men. 

But  to  come  back  from  this  dream  of  the  future. 

Certain  facts  now  become  evident.  In  the  inheritance 
of  each  individual  are  many  latent  qualities  that  do  not 
find  expression.  It  is  as  if  in  every  life  the  separate 
heredity  qualities,  or  groups  of  qualities,  wait  in  com- 
petition, and  those  that  succeed  and  find  an  expression 
in  each  life  owe  their  success  to  an  incalculable  number 
of  small  and  mostly  unknown  circumstances.  One  is 
tempted  to  speculate  as  to  a  possible  direction  in  the 
future  of  women  that  may  arise  from  the  liberating  of 
these  unknown  forces ;  but  as  yet  we  have  not  a  sufficient 
basis  of  facts.  But  one  truth  must  not  be  lost  sight  of; 
the  unsuccessful  qualities  that  do  not  find  their  expres- 
sion in  an  individual  life  may  remain  to  be  handed  on 
for  new  competition  to  a  new  generation.  No  one  of 
the  forces  of  our  inheritance,  be  it  for  good  or  for  evil, 
is  dead ;  rather  it  sleeps  till  that  time  when  the  liberating 
powers  of  Nurture  call  it  into  active  expression.  There 

is  real  biological  truth  in  the  saying,  "  Every  man  is  a 
ca 


20  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

potential  criminal " ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  every  one 
is  a  possible  saint.  And  there  is  one  point  further;  we 
know  that  those  qualities  which  do  succeed  in  the  com- 
petition of  the  inheritance,  and  which  form  at  birth  the 
character  of  the  individual,  are  very  different  from  their 
actual  expression  in  the  development  of  life,  where  per- 
force such  qualities  are  modified  to  the  environment. 
What  we  are  is  no  certain  criterion  of  what  we  are  capable 
of  becoming.  For  every  item  of  our  inheritance  requires 
an  appropriate  growth-soil  if  it  is  actively  to  live.  Each 
life  is  an  adjustment  of  internal  character  to  external 
conditions.  A  garden  that  has  been  choked  with  weeds 
may  remain  flowerless  for  many  succeeding  years,  but 
dig  that  garden,  and  sleeping  flowers,  not  known  to  live 
within  the  memory  of  man,  may  spring  to  life.  May  it 
not  be  that  in  the  garden  of  woman's  inheritance  there 
are  buried  seeds,  lying  dormant,  which  at  the  liberating 
touch  of  opportunity  may  reawaken  and  assert  them- 
selves as  forgotten  flowers?  Yes,  to-day  this  seems  a 
practical  fact  that  already  is  being  accomplished,  and 
not  a  futile  speculation.  The  re-birth  of  woman  is  no 
dream.  At  last  she  is  realising  the  arrest  in  her  develop- 
ment that  has  followed  the  acceptance  of  a  position 
which  forces  her  to  be  a  parasite  and  a  prostitute. 

Every  one  admits  the  differences  of  function  that 
separate  the  female  from  the  male  half  of  humankind. 
But  to  assume  that  the  physical,  mental,  and  moral  dis- 
abilities of  women,  of  which  we  hear  so  much,  are  a 
necessary  part  of  their  inheritance — the  debt  they  pay 
for  being  the  mothers  of  the  race — is  an  absurdity  it 
would  be  difficult  to  explain  except  for  that  strange  sex 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY   21 

bias,  which  seems  always  to  colour  all  opinions  as  to 
women,  their  character  and  their  place  in  society. 
Havelock  Ellis,  who  in  his  admirable  work  Man  and 
Woman  has  made  an  exhaustive  examination  of  all  the 
known  facts  with  regard  to  the  real  and  supposed 
secondary  sexual  differences  between  women  and  men, 
comes  to  this  conclusion  in  his  final  summary — 

"We  have  not  succeeded,"  he  says,  "in  determining  the  radical 
and  essential  character  of  men  and  women  uninfluenced  by  external 
modifying  conditions.  We  have  to  recognise  that  our  present 
knowledge  can  not  tell  us  what  they  might  be,  but  what  they  actually 
are,  under  the  conditions  of  civilisation.  .  .  .  The  facts  are  so 
numerous  that  even  when  we  have  ascertained  the  precise  signifi- 
cance of  some  one  fact,  we  cannot  be  sure  that  it  is  not  contra- 
dicted by  other  facts.  And  so  many  of  the  facts  are  modifiable 
under  a  changing  environment  that  in  the  absence  of  experience 
we  cannot  pronounce  definitely  regarding  the  behaviour  of  either 
the  male  or  female  organism  under  different  conditions." 

Only  a  knowledge  of  the  multifarious  and  complex 
environmental  forces,  which  in  the  past  have  moulded 
women  into  what  to-day  they  are,  will  lead  us  to  our  goal. 
We  may  examine  woman's  present  character,  both 
physical  and  mental,  with  every  precision  of  detail,  but 
the  knowledge  gained  will  not  settle  her  inborn  Nature. 
We  shall  discover  what  she  is,  not  what  she  might  be. 
No,  rather  to  do  this  we  must  go  back  through  many 
generations  to  primitive  woman.  We  must  study,  in  par- 
ticular, that  period  known  as  the  Mother-Age,  when  we 
find  an  early  civilisation  largely  built  up  by  woman's 
activity  and  developed  by  her  skill.  We  must  find  out 
every  fact  that  we  can  of  woman's  physical  and  mental 
life  in  this  first  period  of  social  growth ;  we  must  examine 


22  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

the  causes  which  led  to  the  change  from  this  Mother- 
rule  to  that  of  the  Father-rule,  or  the  patriarchate,  which 
succeeded  it.  Insight  into  the  civilisations  of  the  past  is 
of  special  value  to  us  in  trying  to  solve  our  problems  of 
woman's  true  place  in  the  social  life.  For  one  thing,  we 
shall  learn  that  morality  and  sexual  customs  and  institu- 
tions are  not  fixed,  but  are  peculiar  to  each  age,  and  are 
good  only  in  so  far  as  they  fulfil  the  needs  of  any  special 
period  of  a  people's  growth.  We  must  note,  in  particular, 
the  contributions  made  by  woman  to  early  civilisation, 
and  then  seek  the  reasons  why  she  has  lost  her  former 
position  of  power.  The  savage  woman  is  nearer  to 
Nature  than  we  ourselves  are,  and  in  learning  of  her 
life  we  shall  come  to  an  understanding  of  many  of  the 
problems  of  our  lives. 

This,  then,  must  be  the  second  path  of  our  discovery, 
and,  following  it,  we  shall  gain  further  knowledge  of 
what  is  artificial  and  what  is  real  in  the  character  of 
woman  and  in  the  present  relations  of  the  sexes. 

We  find  that  the  external  surroundings  that  influence 
life  are  referable  to  one  of  two  classes  :  those  which  tend 
to  increase  destructive  processes,  and  find  their  active 
expression  in  expenditure  of  energy,  and  those  which 
tend  to  increase  constructive  processes,  and  are  passive 
instead  of  active,  storing  energy,  not  expending  it. 
These  two  classes  of  external  forces,  disruptive  and  con- 
structive, are  called  katabolic  and  anabolic.  Looking 
back  on  the  early  natural  lives  of  men  and  women,  we 
find  there  has  been  a  very  sharp  separation  in  the  play 
of  these  opposite  sets  of  influences.  A  hasty  survey  of 
the  facts  suffices  to  prove  that  the  work  of  the  world  was 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY   23 

divided  into  two  great  parts,  the  men  had  the  share  of 
killing  life,  whether  that  of  man  or  of  animals,  their 
attention  was  given  to  fighting  and  hunting;  while  the 
women's  share  was  the  continuing  and  nourishing  life, 
their  attention  being  given  to  the  domestic  arts — to 
agriculture  and  the  attendant  stationary  industries. 
Woman's  position  during  the  matriarchate  was  largely 
the  result  of  the  need  in  primitive  society  of  woman's 
constructive  energy,  and  her  power  arose  from  an  un- 
fettered use  of  her  special  functions.  But  this  divergence 
of  the  paths  of  women  from  the  paths  of  men  continued, 
and  during  the  patriarchal  period  became  arbitrary  with 
the  withdrawal  of  women  from  initiative  labour,  an 
unnatural  arrangement  which  arose  out  of  later  social 
conditions.  The  militant  side  of  social  activities  has 
belonged  to  men,  the  passive  to  women;  and  men  have 
been  goaded  into  growth  by  the  conditions  and  struggles 
of  their  lives.  They  have  gathered  around  themselves 
a  special  man-formed  environment  of  institutions  and 
laws,  of  activities  and  inventions,  of  art  and  literature, 
of  male  sentiments,  and  male  systems  of  opinions,  to 
which  they  are  connected  in  subtle  and  numerous  rela- 
tions, and  this  complex  heritage  of  influences  has  been 
reimposed  on  men  generation  by  generation.  In  this 
social  working-life  women  have  not  had  an  equal  part 
—and  a  drag  in  their  development  has  arisen  as  the  result 
of  this  passivity.  At  a  certain  period  in  civilisation 
women  became  an  inferior  class  because  men  with  their 
greater  range  of  opportunities,  which  brought  them  within 
a  wider  and  more  variable  circle  of  influences,  developed 
a  superior  fitness  on  the  motor  side.  Another  contrast 


24  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

is  very  evident,  men's  work  being  performed  under  more 
striking  circumstances  and  with  more  apparent  effort 
and  danger,  drew  to  itself  prestige,  which  women's  work 
did  not  receive;  their  work,  on  the  contrary,  was  held 
in  contempt.1 

Yet,  in  this  connection,  it  is  necessary  to  say  emphatic- 
ally that,  in  its  origin,  there  was  nothing  arbitrary  in 
this  division  between  the  sexes.  It  was,  in  itself,  a 
natural  outcome  of  natural  causes,  arising  out  of  the 
needs  of  primitive  societies.  There  is  nothing  dero- 
gatory to  woman  in  accepting  the  passive  or,  more  truly, 
the  constructive  power  of  her  nature ;  rather  it  is  her  chief 
claim  for  the  regaining  of  her  true  position  in  society. 
I  wish  at  once  to  say  how  far  it  is  from  my  desire  to 
judge  woman  from  a  male  standpoint.  The  power  and 
nature  that  are  woman's  are  not  secondary  to  man's; 
they  are  equal,  but  different,  being  co-existent  and  com- 
plementary— in  fact,  just  the  completion  of  his. 

There  is  another  point  that  must  be  made  clear. 

The  separation  in  the  social  activities  of  women  and 
men  was  not  brought  about,  as  is  stated  so  frequently, 
by  men's  injustice  to  women.  There  is  an  unfortunate 
tendency  to  regard  the  subjection  of  woman  as  wholly 
due  to  male  selfishness  and  tyranny.  Many  leaders  of 
woman's  freedom  hold  to  this  view  as  their  broad  exposi- 
tion of  principle.  Such  belief  is  illogical  and  untrue. 
It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  sex-hatred  means 
retrogression  and  not  progress.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  women  have  not  suffered  at  men's  hands.  They 

1  See  Thomas,   Sex  and  Society,   chapter  on  "  Sex  and   Primitive 
Industry,"  pp.  123-146;  and  Ellis,  Man  and  Woman,  pp.  1-17. 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY   25 

have,  but  not  more  than  men  have  suffered  at  their  hands. 
No  woman  who  faces  facts  can  deny  this  truth.  Neither 
sex  can  afford  to  bring  railing  accusations  against  the 
other.  The  old  doctrine  of  blame  is  insufficient. 
Women's  disabilities  are  not,  in  their  origin  at  least, 
due  to  any  form  of  male  tyranny.  I  believe,  moreover, 
that  any  solution  of  the  woman  problem,  and  of  woman's 
rights,  is  of  ridiculous  impotence  that  attempts  to  see  in 
man  woman's  perpetual  oppressor.  The  enemy,  if  enemy 
there  is,  of  woman's  emancipation,  is  woman  herself. 

But,  on  the  other  side,  it  is  certain  that  the  long-held 
opinion — what  we  may  call  "  the  male  view  of  women  " 
-which  believes  that  the  position  woman  occupies  in 
society  and  the  duties  she  performs  are,  in  the  main, 
what  they  should  be,  she  being  what  she  is,  is  equally 
false.  Such  theorists  throw  upon  Nature  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  evils  consequent  on  the  deviations  from 
equality  of  opportunity  in  the  past  lives  of  women. 
Truly  we  credit  Nature  with  an  absurd  blunder  do  we 
accept  this  inferiority  of  the  female  half  of  life.  Woman 
is  what  she  is  because  she  has  lived  as  she  has.  And 
no  estimate  of  her  character,  no  effort  to  fix  the  limit  of 
her  activities,  can  carry  weight  that  ignores  the  totally 
different  relations  towards  society  that  have  artificially 
grown  up,  dividing  so  sharply  the  life  of  woman  from 
that  of  man. 

I  am  brought  back  to  the  object  of  this  book. 

What  are  the  conditions  that  have  brought  woman  to 
her  position  of  dependence  upon  man?  How  far  is  her 
state  of  physical  and  mental  inferiority  the  result  of  this 
position?  To  what  extent  is  she  justified  in  her  present 


26  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WMOAN 

revolt  ?  What  result  will  her  freedom  have  on  the  sexual 
relationships  ?  Will  the  change  be  likely  to  work  for  the 
benefit  of  the  future?  In  a  word,  how  far  are  the  new 
claims  woman  is  making  consistent  with  race  permanence  ? 
It  is  not  one,  but  a  whole  group  of  questions  that  have 
to  be  answered  when  once  the  ideal  of  the  right  of  the 
present  position  of  the  sexes  is  shaken.  The  subject  is  so 
entangled  that  a  straightforward  step-by-step  inquiry  will 
not  always  be  possible.  Dogmatic  conclusions,  and  the 
bringing  forward  of  too  hasty  remedies  must  alike  be 
avoided.  The  past  must  lead  us  to  the  present,  and 
thence  we  must  look  to  the  future.  The  first  need  is  to 
find  out  every  fact  that  we  can  that  will  help  us  in  our 
search  for  the  truth.  Most  writers  on  the  subject,  in  their 
desire  to  fix  on  a  cause  of  the  evil,  have  selected  one 
factor,  or  group  of  factors,  and  largely  neglected  all 
others.  Otto  Weininger,  for  instance,  the  brilliant 
modern  denouncer  of  woman,  refers  the  whole  great 
difference  between  women  and  men  to  one  cause — the 
bondage  of  sexuality.  Mrs.  Stetson,  in  Woman  and 
Economics,  finds  a  different  answer  to  the  same  question, 
and  assumes  that  the  whole  evil  is  of  economic  origin. 
Both  explanations  are  in  part  true,  but  neither  is  the 
truth. 

To  institute  reform  successfully  needs  a  wider  spirit. 
We  must  face  sex  problems  with  biological  and  historical 
knowledge.  Before  we  can  understand  women's  present 
position  in  society,  or  even  suggest  a  future,  we  must 
examine  the  place  she  has  filled  in  the  civilisations  of  the 
past;  we  must  fix,  too,  the  part  the  female  half  of  life 
has  played  in  the  evolution  of  the  sexes.  Yet  an  inquiry 


THE  STARTING-POINT  OF  THE  INQUIRY     27 

into  facts  is  only  the  first  stage,  and  not  the  final.  When 
we  can  go  on  from  these  facts  to  their  results,  and  learn 
the  reasons  of  what  we  have  discovered,  we  shall  become 
to  some  extent,  at  least,  prepared.  Then,  and  then  only, 
can  we  venture  to  look  forward  and  intelligently  suggest 
whither  the  present  revolution  is  leading  us. 

It  is  to  reach  this  goal  that  this  book  is  written.  It  is 
an  attempt  to  place  the  woman  question  in  a  wider  and 
more  decisive  light.  It  is  not  an  investigation  of  facts 
alone,  but  of  causes.  The  gospel  it  would  preach  is  a 
gospel  of  liberation.  And  that  from  which  woman  must 
be  freed  is  herself — the  unsocial  self  that  has  been 
created  by  a  restricted  environment.  We  have  seen  that 
woman's  social  inferiority  in  the  past»has  been  to  a  great 
extent  a  legitimate  thing.  To  all  appearances  history 
would  have  been  impossible  without  it,  just  as  it  would 
have  been  impossible  without  an  epoch  of  slavery  and 
war.  Physical  strength  has  ruled  in  the  past,  and  woman 
was  the  weaker.  The  truth  is  that  woman's  time  had  not 
come,  but  now  her  unconscious  evolution  must  give  place 
to  a  conscious  development.  Happiness  for  women ! 
That  must  imply  wholly  independent  activities,  and  com- 
plete freedom  for  the  exercise  of  her  work  of  race  pro- 
duction. Woman's  duty  to  society  is  paramount,  she  is 
the  guardian  of  the  Race-body  and  Race-soul.  But 
woman  must  be  responsible  to  herself;  no  longer  must 
she  follow  men.  The  natural  growth  force  needs  to  be 
liberated.  Woman  must  be  freed  as  woman;  she  must 
die  to  arise  from  death  a  full  human  being.  There  is 
no  other  solution  to  the  woman  question,  and  there  can 
be  no  other. 


PART  I 
BIOLOGICAL   SECTION 


CONTENTS    OF    CHAPTER    II 

THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE    SEXES 

Biology  the  starting-point  of  sociology — The  irresistible  force  of  Love — 
The  true  place  of  woman  and  man  in  the  animal  kingdom — Analogy 
between  animal  love-matings  and  our  own — The  Life-force — 
Reproduction  a  process  of  nutrition — Different  modes  of  Reproduc- 
tion— Cell-division — Successive  stages  of  growth — Theory  of  sex — 
Its  nature  and  origin — Incipient  sex  among  the  early  forms  of  life — 
The  true  office  of  sex — The  principle  of  fertilisation — Its  use  to 
the  species  in  progressive  development — Nutrition  as  a  factor 
determining  sex — Illustration  of  the  volvox — The  dependence  of 
the  male-cell  upon  the  female-cell — The  well-nourished  female — 
The  hungry  male — Relation  between  food  supply  and  the  sexes — 
Illustrations — Lessons  to  be  learnt — All  species  are  invented  and 
tolerated  by  Nature  for  parenthood  and  its  service — The  part 
played  by  the  female — The  demand  laid  upon  her  heavier  than 
that  laid  upon  the  male — The  female  is  mainly  responsible  for  the 
race — The  female  led  and  the  male  followed  in  the  evolution  of 
life. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE    SEXES 

"  Before  studying  the  sexual  relations,  and  their  more  or  less  regulated 
form  in  human  societies,  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  say  a  few  words 
on  reproduction  in  general,  to  sketch  briefly  its  physiology  in  so  far 
as  this  is  fundamental,  and,  to  show  how  tyrannical  are  the  instincts 
whose  formation  has  been  determined  by  physiological  causes." — 
LETOURNEAU. 

LET  us  now,  as  the  first  path  of  our  inquiry,  turn  our 
attention  to  that  biological  point  of  view  which  is  indis- 
pensable and  fundamental  if  we  are  to  understand  those 
primary  emotions,  impulses  and  differences  of  the  sexes, 
of  deep  organic  origin,  which  were  rooted  long  ago  in 
the  lowest  forms  of  life,  and  hence  were  passed  on  to 
man  from  his  pre-human  ancestors.  No  apology  is 
needed  for  this  inquiry ;  for  in  these  uncounted  ancestral 
forces,  dating  back  to  the  remote  beginnings  of  life,  we 
shall  find  hints,  at  least,  of  many  things  which  lead  up 
to  and  explain  those  problems  which  must  be  solved, 
before  we  can  determine  the  true  position  of  woman  in 
the  complex  sexual  relations  of  our  social  life.  We 
cannot  deny  our  lineage.  The  force  which  drove  life 
onwards  from  the  start  drives  it  still  to-day.  The  repro- 
ductive impulse  is  the  chief  motor  of  humanity ;  our  seed 
is  eternal.  And  the  point  of  view  that  I  wish  to  make 
clear  is  that  the  sex-impulses,  which  are,  as  few  will 
deny,  the  base  of  the  present  unrest  among  women,  have 
an  inconceivably  long  history,  and  thus  spring  up  within 
D  33 


34  THE   TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

us  with  a  tremendous  organic  momentum.  To  deny  this 
force  is  futile,  to  suppress  it  impossible;  all  that  can  be 
done  is  to  so  regulate  its  expression  that  it  may  serve 
life  instead  of  waste  it.  Implanted  in  every  normal  life 
is  an  instinctive  desire  to  function  in  two  ways :  to  grow 
and  to  reproduce,  from  the  simple  cell  to  the  highest 
type  of  life,  including  man  and  woman,  these  two  desires 
are  essential  and  imperative.  The  irresistible  Force  of 
Life  has  been  inherited  by  us  from  millions  of  ancestral 
lovers.  Only  when  furnished  with  a  re-interpretative  clue 
to  the  origin  of  sex  and  its  functioning  can  we  come  to 
realise  its  strength  and  its  beauty,  far  stronger,  far  subtler, 
than  we  suspected  before.  It  is  the  shirking  of  these 
life-facts  that  has  resulted  so  often  in  error. 

And  let  no  one  resent  or  think  useless  such  an  analogy 
between  animal  love-matings  and  our  own.  In  tracing 
the  evolution  of  our  love-passions  from  the  sexual  rela- 
tions of  other  mammals,  and  back  to  those  of  their 
ancestors,  and  to  the  humbler,  though  scarcely  less  beau- 
tiful, ancestors  of  these,  we  shall  discover  what  must  be 
considered  as  essential  and  should  be  lasting,  and  what 
is  false  in  the  conditions  and  character  of  the  sexes 
to-day;  and  thereby  we  shall  gain  at  once  warning  in 
what  directions  to  pause,  and  new  hope  to  send  us  for- 
ward. We  shall  learn  that  there  are  factors  in  our  sex- 
impulses  that  require  to  be  lived  down  as  out-of-date 
and  no  longer  beneficial  to  the  social  needs  of  life.  But 
encouragement  will  come  as,  looking  backwards,  we  learn 
how  the  mighty  dynamic  of  sex-love  has  evolved  in  fine- 
ness, without  losing  its  intensity,  how  it  is  tending  to 
become  more  mutual,  more  beautiful,  more  lasting.  And 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE   SEXES  35 

this  gives  us  new  hope  to  press  forward  on  that  path 
which  woman  even  now  is  travelling,  wherein  she  will 
be  free  from  the  risk  of  clinging  to  conditions  of  the 
past,  which  for  so  long  have  dragged  her  evolution  in 
the  mire. 

The  same  force  that  pushed  life  into  existence  tends 
to  increase  and  perpetuate  it.  For  when  the  great  Force 
of  Life  has  once  started,  the  same  movements  which 
constitute  that  life  continue,  and  give  rise  to  nutrition, 
the  first  of  the  great  faculties,  or  powers,  of  life.  Then, 
after  this  growth  has  been  carried  to  a  certain  point,  the 
organism  from  the  superabundance  of  nutrition  is  fur- 
nished with  a  surplus  growing  energy,  by  means  of  which 
it  reproduces  itself,  whence  arises  the  second  of  the  great 
life  faculties.  We  thus  have  the  two  essential  forces  of 
life — the  preservative  force  and  the  reproductive  force, 
arising  alike  from  nutrition.  Food  to  assure  life  and 
growth  for  the  individual ;  reproduction,  an  extension  of 
the  same  process,  to  ensure  the  continuance  of  the 
species.  We  thus  see  the  truth  of  Haeckel's  definition 
that  "reproduction  is  a  nutrition  and  growth  of  the 
organism  beyond  its  individual  mass,"  or  in  biological 
formula,  "  a  discontinuous  growth."  * 

It  is  well  to  grasp  at  once  this  first  conception  of  repro- 
duction as  simply  an  extension  of  nutrition,  if  we  are  to 
free  our  minds  from  misconception.  It  is  a  common 
belief  that  the  original  purpose  of  sex  is  to  ensure  repro- 
duction, whereas  fundamentally  it  is  not  necessary  to 
propagation  at  all.  It  is  perfectly  true,  of  course,  that 

1  Haeckel,  Generelle  Morphologic  der  Organismen,  Vol.  II.  p.  16. 
D  2 


36  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

in  the  majority  of  animals,  and  also  in  many  plants,  an 
individual  life  begins  in  the  union  of  two  minute 
elements,  the  mother  egg-cell  and  the  sperm  father-cell. 
But  this  is  not  the  earliest  stage,  and  below  these  higher 
forms  we  find  a  great  world  of  life  reproducing  without 
this  sex-process  by  simple  separation  and  growth.  In 
these  unicellular  organisms  reproduction  is  known  as 
asexual,  because  there  are  no  special  germ-cells,  nor  is 
there  anything  corresponding  to  fertilisation.  The  most 
common  forms  are  (i)  by  division  into  two;  (2)  by  bud- 
ding, a  modified  form  of  division;  (3)  by  sporulation,  a 
division  into  many  units.1 

It  is  worth  while  to  wait  to  learn  something  of  this 
first  stage  in  the  development  of  life,  for  in  this  way 
we  shall  gain  a  clue  as  to  the  origin  of  sex  and  the  real 
purpose  it  fulfils  in  the  service  of  reproduction.  In  the 
very  simplest  forms  of  unicellular  organisms  propagation 
is  effected  at  what  is  known  as  "  the  limit  of  growth  " ; 
when  the  cell  has  attained  as  much  volume  as  its  surface 
can  adequately  supply  with  food,  a  simple  division  of  the 
cell  takes  place  into  two  halves  or  daughter  cells,  each 
exactly  like  the  other,  which  then  become  independent 
and  themselves  repeat  the  same  rupture  process.  But  in 
some  slightly  more  complex  cases  differences  occur 
between  the  two  cells  into  which  the  organism  divides, 
as  in  the  slipper  animacule,  where  one-half  goes  off  with 
the  mouth,  while  the  other  has  none.  In  a  short  time, 
however,  the  mouthless  half  forms  a  mouth,  and  each 
half  grows  into  a  replica  of  the  original.  We  have  here 
one  of  the  earliest  examples  of  differentiation.  That 

1  Thomson,  J.  Arthur,  Heredity,  p.  29. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE   SEXES  37 

injured  multicellular  organisms  should  be  able  by  re- 
growth  to  repair  their  loss  is  an  analogous  phenomenon ; 
thus  an  earth-worm  cut  by  a  spade  does  not  necessarily 
suffer  loss,  but  the  head  part  grows  a  tail  and  the  decapi- 
tated portion  produces  a  head;  sponges,  which  do  not 
normally  propagate  by  division,  may  be  cut  in  pieces 
and  bedded  out  successfully ;  the  arms  of  a  star-fish,  torn 
asunder  by  a  fisherman,  will  almost  always  result  in 
several  perfect  star-fish.  Similarly  among  plants  a  cut- 
off portion  may  readily  give  rise  to  new  plants — a  potato- 
tuber  is  one  of  hundreds  of  instances.  This  ability  to 
effect  complete  repair  is  one  of  the  powers  that  life  has 
lost;  it  persists  as  high  in  the  scale  as  reptiles,  and  a 
lizard  is  able  to  regrow  an  amputated  leg. 

It  is  certainly  not  the  least  interest  in  studying  these 
early  forms  that  one  is  able  to  trace  the  analogy  they 
bear  with  the  higher  forms.  No  rigid  line  can  be  drawn 
between  the  successive  stages  of  growth.  And  it  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that,  simple  as  is  the  life-process  in 
these  single-celled  organisms,  many  of  them  are  highly 
differentiated  and  show  great  complexity  of  structure 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  their  size.  Thus  among  the 
protozoa,  the  basis  of  all  animal  life,  we  find  very  definite 
and  interesting  modes  of  behaviour,  such  as  seeking  light 
and  avoiding  it,  swimming  in  a  spiral,  approaching  cer- 
tain substances  and  retreating  from  others ;  the  organisms 
often,  indeed,  trying  one  behaviour  after  another.1  If 
we  realise  this  it  becomes  easier  to  understand  how  the 
higher  types  of  life  have  developed  from  these  primitive 
types.  Indeed,  all  the  bodies  of  the  most  complex 

1  Thomson,  J.  Arthur,  Heredity,  p.  33. 


88  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

animals — including  ourselves — originate  as  simple  cells, 
and  in  the  individual  history  of  each  of  us  divide  and 
multiply  just  as  do  the  cells  which  exist  independently; 
only  in  multicellular  organisms  each  cell  must  be 
regarded  as  an  individual,  modified  to  serve  a  special 
purpose,  one  cell  differentiated  to  start  a  lineage  of 
nerve  cells,  another  a  lineage  of  digestive  cells,  yet 
another  for  the  reproduction  of  the  species,  and  so  on, 
each  group  of  cells  taking  on  its  special  use,  but  the 
power  of  division  remaining  with  the  modified  cell.  Thus 
a  new  life  is  built  up — a  child  becomes  an  adult,  by 
multiplication  of  these  differentiated  cells,  repeating  the 
original  single-cell  development. 

Budding,  the  second,  and  perhaps  the  most  usual  mode 
of  asexual  propagation,  may  be  said  to  mark  a  further 
step  in  the  development  of  the  reproductive  process. 
Here  the  mother-cell,  instead  of  dividing  into  two  equal 
parts  and  at  once  rupturing,  protrudes  a  small  portion 
of  its  substance,  which  is  separated  by  a  constriction  that 
grows  deeper  and  deeper  until  the  bulk  becomes  wholly 
detached.  This  small  bud  then  grows  until  it  attains 
the  size  of  the  parent,  when  it,  in  turn,  repeats  the  same 
process.  This  mode  of  reproduction  is  common  to  the 
great  majority  of  plants.  In  animal  life  it  is  not  confined 
to  single-celled  organism,  but  takes  place  in  certain 
multicellulars,  such  as  worms,  bryozoans,  and  ascidians; 
one  very  interesting  example  being  the  sea-worm 
(myrianida)  which  buds  off  a  whole  chain  of  individuals. 

Nearly  allied  with  budding  is  the  third  stage,  in  which 
the  division  is  multiple  and  rapid  within  the  limited  space 
of  the  mother-cell.  This  is  known  as  spore  formation. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE   SEXES  39 

The  cells  become  detached,  and  do  not  further  develop 
until  they  have  escaped  from  the  parent.  They  then 
increase  by  division  and  growth  to  form  independent 
individuals.  This  spore  reproduction  is  found  among 
certain  types  of  vegetation ;  it  also  occurs  in  the  protozoa. 
It  is  probable  that  these  three  stages  of  asexual  repro- 
duction are  not  all  the  steps  actually  taken  by  Nature  in 
the  development  of  the  early  life-process.  There  must 
have  been  intermediate  steps,  perhaps  many  such,  but  the 
forms  in  which  they  occur  either  have  not  persisted,  or 
have  not  yet  been  studied.1  The  feature  common  to  all 
ordinary  forms  of  asexual  multiplication  is  that  the  repro- 
ductive process  is  independent  of  sex;  what  starts  the 
new  life  is  the  half,  or  a  liberated  portion  of  the  single 
parent  cell.  It  will  be  readily  seen  that  by  this  process 
the  offspring  are  identical  with  the  parent.  Life  con- 
tinues, but  it  continues  unchanged.  Thus  the  power  of 
growth  is  restricted  within  extremely  narrow  limits. 
Any  further  development  required  a  new  process.  With 
the  life-force  pushing  in  all  directions  every  possible 
process  would  be  tried.  We  are  often  met  with  striking 
phenomena  of  adjustments  to  new  conditions,  which  in 
some  cases,  when  found  to  be  advantageous  to  the 
organism,  persist.  There  is,  in  fact,  abundant  evidence 
that  Nature  in  these  early  days  of  life  was  making 
experiments.  In  pursuance  of  this  policy  it  naturally 
came  about  that  any  process  by  which  the  organism 
gained  increased  power  of  growth  had  the  greater  likeli- 
hood of  survival.  The  number  of  devices  in  the  way 
of  modification  of  form  and  habit  to  secure  advantage 

1  Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  p.  307. 


40  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

is  practically  infinite;  but  there  was  one  principle  that 
was  eagerly  seized  upon  at  a  very  early  stage,  and,  per- 
sisting by  this  law  of  advantage,  was  utilised  by  all 
progressive  types  as  an  accessory  of  success.  This  was 
the  principle  of  fertilisation,  which  arose  in  this  way 
from  what  would  almost  seem  the  chance  union  of  two 
cells,  at  first  alike,  but  afterwards  more  and  more  highly 
differentiated,  and  from  whose  primordial  mating  have 
proceeded  by  a  natural  series  of  ascending  steps  all  the 
developed  forms  of  sex. 

The  ways  in  which  this  was  brought  about  we  have 
now  to  see.  But  even  at  this  point  it  becomes  evident 
that  the  true  office  of  sex  was  not  the  first  need  of 
securing  reproduction — that  had  been  done  already — 
rather  it  was  the  improving  and  perfecting  of  the  single- 
cell  process  by  introducing  variation  through  the  com- 
mingling of  the  ancestral  hereditary  elements  of  two 
parents,  and,  by  means  of  such  variations,  the  production 
of  new  and  higher  forms  of  life — in  fact,  progress  by 
the  mighty  dynamic  of  sex.1 

As  we  should  expect,  the  passing  from  the  sexless 
mode  of  reproduction  to  the  definite  male  and  female 
types  is  not  sharply  defined  or  abrupt.  Even  among 
many  unicellular  organisms  the  process  becomes  more 
elaborate  with  distinct  specialisation  of  reproductive  ele- 
ments. In  some  cases  conjugation  is  observed,  when  two 
individuals  coalesce,  and  each  cell  and  each  nucelus 
divides  into  two,  and  each  half  unites  with  the  half  of 
the  other  to  form  a  new  cell.  This  is  asexual,  since 

1  See  Ward,  op.  cit.,  pp.  304-314,  from  whose  chapter  on  this  subject 
I  have  taken  these  facts. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE   SEXES  41 

the  uniting  cells  are  exactly  similar,  but  the  effect  would 
seem  to  be  the  strengthening  of  the  cells  by,  as  it  were, 
introducing  new  blood.  In  somewhat  more  complex 
cases  these  cells  do  not  part  company  when  they  divide, 
but  remain  attached  to  one  another,  and  form  a  kind  of 
commonwealth.  Here  one  can  see  at  once  that  some 
cells  in  a  little  group  will  be  less  advantageously  placed 
for  the  absorption  of  nourishment  than  others.  By 
degrees  this  differentiation  of  function  brings  about 
differentiation  of  form,  and  cells  become  modified,  in 
some  cases,  to  a  surprising  extent,  to  serve  special  pur- 
poses. The  next  advance  is  when  the  uniting  cells 
become  somewhat  different  in  themselves.  In  the  early 
stages  this  difference  appears  as  one  of  size;  a  small 
weakly  cell,  though  sometimes  propagating  by  union 
with  a  similar  cell,  in  other  cases  seeks  out  a  larger  and 
more  developed  cell,  and  by  uniting  with  it  in  mutual 
nourishment  becomes  strong.  This  may  be  seen 
among  the  protozoa  where  we  can  trace  the  distinct 
beginnings  of  the  male  and  female  elements.  A  very 
instructive  example  is  furnished  by  the  case  of  volvox,  a 
multicellular  vegative  organism  of  very  curious  habits. 
The  cells  at  first  are  all  alike;  they  are  united  by  proto- 
plasmic bridges  and  form  a  colony.  In  favourable 
environmental  conditions  of  abundant  nutrition  this  state 
of  affairs  continues,  and  the  colony  increases  only  by 
multiplication  and  without  fertilisation.  But  when  the 
supply  of  food  is  exhausted,  or  by  any  cause  is  checked, 
sexual  reproduction  is  resorted  to,  and  this  in  a  way  that 
illustrates  most  instructively  the  differentiation  of  the 
female  and  male  cells.  Some  of  the  cells  are  seen 


42  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

accumulating  nourishment  at  the  expense  of  the  others 
and  grow  larger,  and  if  this  continues,  cells  which  must 
be  regarded  as  ova,  or  female  cells,  result;  while  other 
cells,  less  advantageously  placed  with  more  competitors 
struggling  to  obtain  food,  grow  smaller  and  gradually 
change  their  character,  becoming,  in  fact,  males.  In 
some  cases  distinct  colonies  may  in  this  way  arise,  some 
composed  entirely  of  the  large  well-nourished  cells,  and 
others  of  small  hungry  cells,  and  may  be  recognised  as 
completely  female  or  male  colonies.1 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  gain  a  clue  to  the  difficult 
problem  of  the  origin  of  the  sexes.  It  would  be  easy  as 
well  as  instructive  to  accumulate  examples.2  I  am 
tempted  to  linger  over  the  life-histories  of  these  early 
organisms  that  are  so  full  of  suggestion;  but  the  case  I 
have  selected — the  volvox — really  answers  the  question. 
Sex  here  is  dependent  on,  and  would  seem  to  have  arisen 
through,  differences  in  environmental  conditions.  We 
find  the  well-nourished,  larger,  and  usually  more 
quiescent  cell  is  the  female,  the  hungrier  and  more 
mobile  cell  the  male;  the  one  concerned  with  storing 
energy,  the  other  with  consuming  it,  the  one  building  up, 
the  other  breaking  down;  or  expressed  in  biological 
formula,  the  female  cell  is  predominantly  anabolic,  that 
of  the  male  predominantly  katabolic.  Thus  we  find  that 
the  male,  through  a  want  of  nutrition,  was  carried 
developmentally  away  from  the  well-fed  female  cell, 
which  it  was  bound  to  seek  and  unite  with  to  continue 
life.  This  relation  between  the  food  supply  and  the 

1  Evolution  of  Sex,  pp.  137-138,  161. 

2  Geddes  and  Thomson,   in    The    Evolution    of    Sex,    pp.    117-123, 
135-140,  give  many  interesting  and  corroborative  examples. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE   SEXES  43 

sexes  is  found  persisting  in  higher  forms,  and,  in  this 
connection,  the  well-known  experiments  of  Young  on 
tadpoles  and  of  Siebald  on  wasps  may  be  cited.  By 
increasing  the  nutrition  of  tadpoles  the  percentage  of 
females  was  raised  from  the  normal  of  about  fifty  per 
cent,  to  ninety,  while  similarly  among  wasps  the  number 
of  females  was  found  to  depend  on  warmth  and  food 
supply,  and  to  decrease  as  these  diminished.  Mention 
also  may  be  made  of  the  plant-lice,  or  aphides,  which 
infest  our  rose-bushes  and  other  plants,  which,  during 
the  summer  months,  when  conditions  are  favourable,  pro- 
duce generation  after  generation  of  females,  but  on  the 
advent  of  autumn,  with  its  cold  and  scarcity  of  food, 
males  appear  and  sexual  reproduction  takes  place. 
Similarly  brine-shrimps  when  living  under  favourable 
conditions  produce  females,  but  when  the  environment 
is  less  favourable  males  as  well  are  found.  Another 
significant  fact  is  the  simple  and  well-known  one  that 
within  the  first  eight  days  of  larval  life  the  additions 
of  food  will  determine  the  striking  and  functional  differ- 
ences between  the  workers  and  queen-bee.1  Among  the 
higher  animals  the  difficulties  of  proving  the  influence 
of  environment  upon  sex  are,  of  course,  much  greater. 
There  are,  however,  many  facts  which  point  to  a  per- 
sistence of  this  fundamental  differentiation.  Among 
these  it  is  sufficient  to  mention  the  experiments  of  stock- 
breeders, which  show  that  good  conditions  tend  to  pro- 
duce females;  and  the  testimony  of  furriers  that  rich 
regions  yield  more  furs  from  females,  and  poor  regions 

1  Geddes  and  Thomson,  The  Evolution  of  Sex,  pp.  40-52,  249-250, 
give  a  complete  exposition  of  this  theory  with  many  examples.  See 
also  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  4-43. 


44  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

more  from  males.  Even  when  we  reach  the  human 
species  facts  are  not  wanting  to  suggest  a  similar  con- 
dition. It  is  usual  in  times  of  war  and  famine  for  more 
boys  to  be  born ;  also  more  boys  are  born  in  the  country 
than  in  cities,  possibly  because  the  city  diet  is  richer, 
especially  in  meat.  Similarly  among  poor  families  the 
percentage  of  boys  is  higher  than  in  well-to-do  families. 
And  although  such  evidence  is  not  conclusive  and  must 
be  accepted  with  great  caution,  it  seems  safe  to  say  that 
the  facts — of  which  I  have  given  a  few  only  of  the  most 
common — are  sufficient  to  suggest  that  the  relation 
among  the  lower  forms  of  life  persists  up  to  the  human 
species,  and  that  the  female  is  the  result  of  surplus 
nutrition  and  the  male  of  scarcity. 

This  is  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose ;  all  other 
questions  and  theories  brought  forward  regarding  the 
determination  and  conditions  of  the  sexes  are  outside 
our  purpose.  Those  who  will  survey  the  evidence  in 
detail  will  find  ample  confirmation  of  the  point  of  view 
I  wish  to  make  clear,  (i)  All  species  are  invented  and 
tolerated  by  Nature  for  parenthood  and  its  service;  (2) 
the  demands  laid  upon  the  female  by  the  part  required 
from  her  are  heavier  than  those  needed  for  the  part 
fulfilled  by  the  male.  The  female  it  is  who  is  mainly 
responsible  to  the  race.  And  for  this  reason  the  progress 
of  the  world  of  life  has  always  rested  upon  and  been 
determined  by  the  female  half  of  life.  What  I  wish  to 
establish  now  is  that  the  male  developed  after  and,  as  it 
were,  from  the  female.  The  female  led,  and  the  male 
followed  her  in  the  evolution  of  life. 


CONTENTS   OF    CHAPTER   III 

GROWTH   AND   REPRODUCTION 

I. — The  Early  Position  of  the  Sexes 

A  further  examination  into  the  opinion  of  the  superiority  of  the  male — 
Contradictions  to  the  accepted  view  of  female  inferiority — A  new 
way  of  stating  the  problem — The  female  as  the  creator  of  the 
male — Examples  of  the  simplest  types  of  the  sexes — Predominance 
of  the  female  in  the  animal  kingdom  below  the  invertebrates — 
Superiority  of  the  female  in  size  and  often  in  power  of  function — 
Complemental  male  husbands — Illustrations  of  male  parasites — 
Corroborative  evidence  from  the  sex-elements — The  primary 
service  of  the  male  to  assist  the  female  in  the  race-work — Sex- 
parasitism  among  females — This  explained  by  the  conditions  under 
which  the  species  live — The  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  sex-parasit- 
ism— Structural  modifications  acquired  for  adapting  the  sexes  to 
different  modes  of  life — Care  of  offspring  not  always  confined  to 
the  female — Among  fishes  it  is  the  father  who  gives  any  attention 
to  the  young — The  superiority  of  the  female  persists  among  higher 
forms — Examples — Sex-equality  among  birds — Conclusion — The 
sexual  relationship  may  assume  almost  any  form  to  suit  the  varying 
conditions  of  life. 

II. — Two  Examples — The  Beehive  and  the  Spider 

The  case  of  the  beehive — The  drones — The  queen-mother — The  sterile - 
workers — The  sacrifice  of  the  sexes  to  the  Life-Force — The  maternal 
instinct  among  the  workers — This  has  persisted  after  the  atrophy 
of  the  sexual  needs — Maternal  love  has  expanded  out  into  social 
affection — Application  of  the  lessons  of  the  beehive — Analogy  with 
modern  society — The  Intellectuals  among  women — Do  they 
understand  what  they  really  want — The  organic  necessity  of  love — 
The  price  of  sterility — The  courtship  of  the  Spider — Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw's  Ann — The  part  played  by  woman  in  courtship — Her 
passivity  only  apparent — Female  superiority  with  which  sexuality 
began  remains  in  every  courtship — The  fierce  hunger  of  the  male — 
His  absorption  by  the  female — Nothing  can,  or  should,  alter 
this — The  importance  of  woman's  activity  in  love  in  connection 
with  her  claim  for  emancipation — General  observations  and  con- 
clusion. 


CHAPTER    III 

GROWTH   AND   REPRODUCTION 

"  Sexually  Woman  is  Nature's  contrivance  for  perpetuating  its 
highest  achievement.  Sexually  Man  is  Woman's  contrivance  for 
fulfilling  Nature's  behest  in  the  most  economical  way.  She  knows 
by  instinct  that  far  back  in  the  evolution  process  she  invented  him, 
differentiated  him,  created  him  in  order  to  produce  something  better 
than  the  single-cell  process  can  produce." — Don  Juan  in  Hefi — Man 
and  Superman. 

I. — The  Early  Position  of  the  Sexes 

THE  opinion  of  the  superiority  of  the  male  sex  has  been 
so  widely,  and  without  question,  accepted  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  emphasise  the  exact  opposite  view  which  was 
brought  forward  in  the  last  chapter.  From  the  earliest 
times  it  has  been  contended  that  woman  is  undeveloped 
man.1  This  opinion  is  at  the  root  of  the  common  estima- 
tion of  woman's  character  to-day.  Huxley,  who  was  in 
favour  of  the  emancipation  of  women,  seems  to  have  held 
this  opinion.  He  says  that  "  in  every  excellent  character 
the  average  woman  is  inferior  to  the  average  man  in  the 
sense  of  having  that  character  less  in  quantity  or  lower 
in  quality ; "  and  that  "  the  female  type  of  character  is 
neither  better  nor  worse  than  the  male,  only  weaker." 
Few  have  maintained  that  the  sexes  are  equal,  still  fewer 

1  So  deep-rooted  has  been  this  opinion  of  female  inferiority  that  it 
has  formed  the  basis  of  many  theories  of  sex.  Thus  Richarz  holds 
that  "  the  male  sex  represents  a  higher  grade  of  development  in  the 
embryo."  Hough  thinks  males  are  born  when  the  female  system  is  at 
its  best,  females  in  periods  of  growth,  reparation,  or  disease.  Tiedman 
and  others  regard  females  as  an  arrested  male,  while  Velpau,  on  the 
other  hand,  believes  them  to  be  degenerated  from  primitive  males. 
See  Geddes  and  Thomson,  Evolution  of  Sex,  p.  39. 

47 


48  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

that  women  excel.1  The  general  bias  of  opinion  has 
always  been  in  favour  of  men.  Woman  almost  invariably 
has  been  accorded  a  secondary  place,  the  male  has  been 
held  to  be  the  primary  and  essential  half  of  life,  all  things, 
as  it  were,  centering  around  him.^tyhile  the  female, 
though  necessary  to  the  continuance  of  the  race,  has  been 
regarded  as  otherwise  unimportant — in  fact,  a  mere 
accessory  to  the  male. 

The  causes  that  have  given  rise  to  such  an  opinion 
are  not  far  to  seek.  The  question  has  been  approached 
from  the  wrong  end;  we  have  looked  from  above  down- 
wards— from  the  latest  stages  of  life  back  to  the  begin- 
ning, instead  of  from  the  beginning  on  to  the  end.  We 
find  among  the  higher  forms  of  life — the  animals  with 
which  we  are  all  familiar — that  the  males  are  as  a  rule 
larger  and  stronger,  more  varied  in  structure,  and  more 
highly  ornamented  and  adorned  than  the  females.  And 
when  we  rise  to  the  human  species  these  sex  differences 
persist  and  are  even  emphasised,  though  finding  their 
expression  in  a  greater  number  of  less  strongly  marked 
characters,  not  on  the  physical  side  alone,  but  on  the 
mental  and  psychical.  It  is  difficult  to  divest  the  mind 
of  facts  with  which  it  is  most  familiar.  Thus  it  is  easy 
to  understand  the  widely-held  opinion  of  the  superiority 
of  the  male  half  of  life,  and  that  the  female  is  the  sex 
sacrificed  to  the  reproductive  process. 

Now,  were  this  true,  the  question  of  woman's  place  in 
life  would  indeed  be  settled.  There  can  be  no  upward 
change  which  is  not  in  accord  with  the  laws  of  Nature. 

1  The  theory  of  Lester  Ward,  to  which  I  have  already  referred, 
supports  this  view. 


THE   EARLY   POSITION   OF  THE   SEXES     49 

If  the  female  really  started  and  had  always  remained 
secondary  to  the  male,  necessary  to  continue  life,  but 
otherwise  unimportant,  in  such  position  she  must  be  con- 
tent to  stay.  Her  struggles  for  advancement  may  be 
heroic,  yet  would  they  be  doomed  to  failure,  for  no  indi- 
vidual growth  can  persist  which  injures  the  growth  of  the 
race-life.  Well  it  is  for  women  that  there  need  be 
no  such  fear,  even  among  the  most  timid-hearted; 
woman's  position  and  advancement  is  sure  because  it 
is  founded  with  deepest  roots  in  the  organic  scheme 
of  life. 

As  once  more  we  search  backwards,  tracing  the  differ- 
ences of  sex  function  to  their  earliest  appearance  in  the 
humblest  types  of  life,  we  find  the  exact  opposite  of  this 
theory  of  the  inferiority  of  the  female  to  be  true.  The 
female  is  of  more  importance  than  the  male  from 
Nature's  point  of  view.  We  have  seen  that  life  must 
be  regarded  as  essentially  female,  since  there  is  no  choice 
but  to  look  upon  asexual  reproduction  as  a  female 
process;  the  single-cell  being  the  mother-cell  with  the 
fertilising  element  of  the  father  or  male-cell  wanting. 
We  know  further  that  a  similar  process,  but  much  more 
highly  developed,  is  possible  in  what  is  called  partheno- 
genesis, or  virgin-birth,  which  can  only  be  explained  as 
a  survival  of  the  early  form.  For  long  life  continued 
without  the  assistance  of  the  male-cell,  which,  when  it 
did  arise,  was  dependent  on  the  ova,  or  female-cell,  and 
was  driven  by  hunger  to  unite  with  it  in  fatigue  to 
continue  life.  We  are  thus  forced  to  regard  the  male- 
cell  as  an  auxiliary  development  of  the  female,  or  as 
Lester  Ward  ingenuously  puts  it,  "an  after-thought  of 


50  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

Nature  devised  for  the  advantage  of  having  a  second 
sex." 

Now,  if  we  examine  the  simplest  types  of  the  sexes 
in  the  lower  reaches  of  the  animal  kingdom,1  below  the 
vertebrates  we  find  the  same  conditions  prevailing.  The 
male  is  frequently  inconspicuous  in  size,  of  use  only  to 
fertilise  the  female,  and  in  some  cases  incapable  of  any 
other  function;  the  female,  on  the  other  hand,  remains 
unchanged  and  carries  on  the  life  of  the  species.  So 
marked  is  this  difference  among  some  species  that  the 
male  must  be  regarded  as  a  fallen  representative  of  the 
female,  having  not  only  greatly  diminished  in  size,  but 
undergone  thorough  degeneration  in  structure.2  In 
certain  extreme  cases  what  have  been  well  called  "  pigmy 
males"  illustrate  this  contrast  in  an  almost  ridiculous 
degree.  This  is  well  seen  among  the  common  rotifers, 
where  the  males  are  much  smaller  than  the  females  and 

1  I  have  left  out  of  my  inquiry  any  reference  to  plants,  though  all 
that  has  been  said  of  the  protozoa  in  the  last  chapter  is  equally  true  of 
the  protophyla,  the  basis  of  plant  life.     Among  plants  there  are  many 
beautiful   and  instructive  examples   of  the   relative   position   of  the 
female  and  the  male  plant.     A  well-known  case  is  that  of  the  hemp-plant, 
where  the  sexes  are  indistinguishable  up  to  the  period  of  fertility,  but 
when  the  male  plants  have  shed  their  pollen,  and  thus  fulfilled  their 
duty  of  fertilising  the  female  plants,  they  cease  to  grow,  turn  yellow 
and  sere,  and  if  at  all  crowded  wither  and  die.     Many  other  examples 
might  be  cited,  but  the  question  is  too  wide  to  enter  on  here.     See 
Lester  Ward,  o-b.  cit.,  pp.  318-322. 

2  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  article  on  "  Sex,"  by  Prof.  Geddes;  also 
Evolution  of  Sex,   pp.   20,   21.     Prof.   Lester  Ward,   Pure   Sociology, 
Part  II,  Chap.  XIV,  gives  an  ingenuous  and  complete  view  of  the  early 
superiority  of  the  female,  to  which  he  gives  the  name  of  the  Gynaeco- 
centric  theory,  as  opposed  to  the  usual  Androcentric  theory,  based 
on  the  superiority  of  the  male.     While  fully  appreciating  the  sug- 
gestiveness  and  value  of  this  theory,  and  also  acknowledging  very 
gratefully  the  help  I  have  derived  from  it,  it  must  be  stated  that  some 
of  the   facts   brought   forward   in  its  support   by   the   distinguished 
American  cannot  be  accepted.     Nor  am  I  able,  as  will  appear  later,  to 
accept  the  conclusion  he  arrives  at  of  the  passive  character  of  the 
female.     See   also   a  popular   article   by   Prof.   Ward,    "  Our   Better 
Halves,"  The  Forum,  Vol.  VI.,  Nov.  1888,  pp.  266-275. 


THE   EARLY   POSITION   OF  THE   SEXES    51 

very  degenerate.  Sometimes  they  seem  to  have  dwindled 
out  of  existence  altogether,  as  only  females  are  to  be 
seen;  in  other  cases,  though  present  they  fail  even  to 
accomplish  their  proper  function  of  fertilisation,  and  as 
reproduction  is  carried  on  by  the  females,  they  are  not 
only  minute  but  useless.  Nor  are  such  cases  of  male 
degeneration  confined  to  this  group.  The  whole  family 
of  the  Abdominalia  (cirripedes)  have  the  sexes  separate; 
and  the  males,  comparatively  very  small,  are  attached 
to  the  body  of  each  female,  and  are  entirely  passive  and 
dependent  upon  her.1  Some  of  these  male  parasites  are 
so  far  degenerated  as  to  have  lost  their  digestive  organs 
and  are  incapable  of  any  function  except  fertilisation  : 
the  male  Sy garni  (menatodes),  for  instance,  being  so  far 
effaced  that  it  is  nothing  but  a  testicle  living  on  the 
female.2  A  yet  more  striking  instance  is  furnished  by 
the  curious  green  worm  Bonellia,  where  the  male  appears 
like  a  remote  ancestor  of  the  female,  on  whom  it  lives 
parasitically.  Somewhat  similar  is  the  cocus  insect, 
among  whom  the  males  are  very  degenerate,  small,  blind 
and  wingless. 

This  phenomenon  of  minute  parasitic  male  fertilisers 
in  connection  with  normally  developed  females  was 
noticed  by  Darwin,  and  his  observations  have  been  con- 
firmed by  Van  Beneden,  by  Huxley,  Haeckel,  Milne 
Edwards,  Fabre,  Patrick  Geddes,  and  many  other  emi- 
nent entomologists.3  A  full  study  of  these  early  forms  of 

1  Van  Beneden,  Animal  Parasites  and  Messmates,  p.  55. 

*  Milne  Edwards,  Lefons  sur  la  physiologic  et  I'anatomie  comparee 
df  I'komme  et  des  animatix,  Vol.  IX.  p.  267. 

3  In  addition  to  the  works  already  mentioned,  see  Darwin,  Descent 
of  Man,  Vol.  I.  p.  329;  Haeckel,  Evolution  of  Man,  and  A  Manual  of 
the  Anatomy  of  the  Invertebrated  Animals,  by  T.  Huxley,  pp.  261-262. 

E2 


52  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

sexuality  should  be  made  by  all  who  wish  to  understand 
the  problem  of  woman;  their  life-histories  furnish  pro- 
phecies of  many  large  facts.  I  wish  it  were  possible 
for  me  to  bring  forward  further  examples.  It  is  the 
difficulty  of  treating  so  wide  a  subject  within  narrow 
limits  that  so  many  things  that  are  of  interest  have  to 
be  hurried  over  and  left  out.  But  there  is  one  delightful 
case  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  mentioning.  The  facts 
are  given  in  a  letter  from  Darwin  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell, 
dated  September  14,  1849.  It  is  quoted  by  Professor 
Lester  Ward.  This  instance  of  the  sexual  relationship 
among  the  cirripedes  illustrates  very  vividly  the  early 
superiority  of  the  female. 
The  letter  runs  thus — 

"The  other  day  I  got  a  curious  case  of  a  unisexual,  instead  of 
hermaphrodite  cirripede,  in  which  the  female  had  the  common 
cirripedial  character,  and  in  two  valves  of  her  shell  had  two 
little  pockets,  in  each  of  which  she  kept  a  little  husband;  I  do 
not  know  of  any  other  case  in  which  the  female  invariably  has  two 
husbands.  I  have  still  one  other  fact,  common  to  several  species, 
namely,  that  though  they  are  hermaphrodite,  they  have  small 
additional,  or  shall  I  call  them,  complimental  males,  one  specimen, 
itself  hermaphrodite,  had  no  less  than  seven  of  these  complemental 
males  attached  to  it.  Truly  the  schemes  and  wonders  of  Nature 
are  illimitable."  1 

Here,  indeed,  is  a  knock-down  blow  to  the  theory  of 
the  natural  superiority  of  the  male.  These  cases  we 
have  examined  are  certainly  extreme,  the  difference 
between  the  sexes  is,  as  we  shall  see,  less  marked  in 
many  early  types.  But  the  existence  of  these  helpless 
little  husbands  serves  to  show  the  true  origin  of  the  male. 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,  Vol.  I.  p.  345. 


THE  EARLY   POSITION   OF  THE   SEXES   53 

How  often  he  lived  parasitically  on  the  female,  his  work 
to  aid  her  in  the  reproductive  process,  useful  to  secure 
greater  variation  than  could  be  had  by  the  single-celled 
process.  In  other  words,  the  male  is  of  use  to  the  life- 
scheme  in  assisting  the  female  to  produce  progressively 
fitter  forms.  She,  indeed,  created  him,  his  sole  function 
being  her  impregnation. 

Corroborative  evidence  appears  in  the  contrast  which 
persists  in  all  the  higher  forms  between  the  relatively 
large  female-cell  or  germ  and  the  microscopical  male- 
cell  or  sperm,  as  also  in  the  absorption  of  the  male  cellule 
by  the  female  cellule.  In  the  sexual  cells  there  is  no 
character  in  which  differentiation  goes  so  far  as  that  of 
size.1  The  female  cell  is  always  much  larger  than  the 
male;  where  the  former  is  swollen  with  the  reserve  food, 
the  spermatozoa  may  be  less  than  a  millionth  of  its 
volume.  In  the  human  species  an  ovum  is  about  3000 
times  as  large  as  spermatozoa.2  The  male  cellule,  dif- 
ferentiated to  enable  it  to  reach  the  female,  impregnates 
and  becomes  fused  within  her  cellule,  which,  unlike  hers, 
preserves  its  individuality  and  continues  as  the  main 
source  of  life. 

It  is  true  that  exceptions  occur,  sex-parasitism  appear- 
ing in  both  sex  forms,  and  in  some  cases  it  is  the  female 
who  degenerates  and  becomes  wholly  passive  and 
dependent,  but  this  is  usually  under  conditions  which 
afford  in  themselves  an  explanation.  Thus,  in  the 
troublesome  thread-worm  (Heterodera  schacktii),  which 
infests  the  turnip  plant,  the  sexes  are  at  first  alike,  then 

1  Thomson,  J.  A.,  Heredity,  p.  39. 

*  Article  by  Ryder,  Science,  Vol.  I.,  May  31,  1895,  p.  603. 


54  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

both  become  parasitic,  but  the  adult  male  recovers  him- 
self, is  agile  and  like  other  thread-worms,  while  the 
female  remains  a  parasitic  victim  without  power  of  func- 
tion— a  mere  passive,  distended  bag  of  eggs.  Another 
extreme  but  well-known  example  is  that  of  the  cochineal 
insect,  where  the  female,  laden  with  reserve  products  in 
the  form  of  the  well-known  pigment,  spends  much  of  its 
life  like  a  mere  quiescent  gall  on  the  cactus  plant;  the 
male,  on  the  other  hand,  is  active,  though  short-lived. 
Among  other  insects — such,  for  example,  as  certain  ticks 
—a  very  complete  form  of  female  parasitism  prevails; 
and  while  the  male  remains  a  complex,  highly  active, 
winged  creature,  the  female,  fastening  itself  into  the 
flesh  of  some  living  animal  and  sucking  its  blood,  has 
lost  wings  and  all  activity  and  power  of  locomotion, 
having  become  a  mere  distended  bladder,  which,  when 
filled  with  eggs,  bursts  and  ends  a  parasitic  existence 
that  has  hardly  been  life.1  In  many  crustaceans,  again, 
the  females  are  parasitic,  but  this  also  is  explained  by 
their  habit  of  seeking  shelter  for  egg-laying  purposes.2 

The  whole  question  of  sex-parasitism  as  it  appears  in 
these  first  pages  of  the  life-histories  of  sexes  is  one  of 
deep  suggestion;  and  one,  moreover,  that  casts  forward 
sharp  side-lights  on  modern  sex  problems.  In  some 
early  forms,  where  the  conditions  of  life  are  similar  for 
the  two  sexes,  the  male  and  the  female  are  often  like 

1  Schreiner,  Olive,  Woman  and  Labour,  pp.  77-78. 

2  These    examples    of    female    parasitism    have    been    taken    from 
Evolution   of    Sex,  p.  17;    see    also   pp.    19-22.     The   authors    bring 
them  forward  with  many  other  examples  to  prove   the   main   thesis 
of  their  book — that  the  character  of  the  female  is  anabolic,  that  of 
the  male  katabolic.    In  establishing  this  theory  they  do  not  appear  to 
give  sufficient  importance  to  the  fact  that  this  degeneration  of  the 
female  is  only  found  where  the  conditions  of  life  are  parasitic. 


THE   EARLY  POSITION    OF  THE   SEXES    55 

one  another.  Thus  it  is  very  difficult  to  distinguish  a 
male  starfish  from  a  female  starfish,  or  a  male  sea-urchin 
from  a  female  sea-urchin.  It  becomes  abundantly  clear 
that  degeneration  in  active  function,  whether  it  be  that 
of  the  male  or  the  female,  is  the  inevitable  nemesis  of 
parasitism.  The  males  and  females  in  the  cases  we  have 
examined  may  be  said  to  be  martyrs  to  their  respective 
sexes. 

A  further  truth  of  the  utmost  importance  becomes 
manifest.  Many  differences  between  the  relative  posi- 
tion of  the  sexes,  which  we  are  apt  to  suppose  are  inherent 
in  the  female  or  male,  are  not  inherent,  in  light  of  these 
early  and  varying  types.  We  see  that  the  sex-relation- 
ship and  the  character  of  the  female  and  male  assume 
different  forms,  changing  as  the  conditions  of  life  vary. 
Again  and  again  when  we  come  to  examine  the  position  of 
women  in  different  periods  of  civilisation,  we  shall  find 
that  whenever  the  conditions  of  life  have  tended  to  with- 
draw them  from  the  social  activities  of  labour,  restricting 
them,  like  these  early  sex-victims,  to  the  passive  exercise 
of  their  reproductive  functions  alone,  that  such  parasit- 
ism has  resulted  invariably  in  the  degeneration  of 
woman,  and  through  her  passing  on  such  deterioration 
to  her  sons,  there  has  followed,  after  a  longer  or  shorter 
period,  the  degeneration  of  society.  But  these  questions 
belong  to  the  later  part  of  our  inquiry,  and  cannot  be 
entered  on  here.  Yet  it  were  well  to  fix  in  our  minds 
at  once  the  dangers,  without  escape,  that  follow  sex- 
parasitism. 

It  may  be  thought  that  these  cases  of  sex-victims  are 
exceptions,  and  that,  therefore,  it  is  unsafe  to  draw 


56  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

conclusions  from  them.  The  truth  would  rather  seem  to 
be  that  they  are  extreme  examples  of  conditions  that  were 
common  at  one  stage  of  life.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
up  to  the  level  of  the  amphibians  female  superiority  in 
size,  and  often  in  power  of  function,  prevails.1  If,  for 
example,  we  look  at  insects  generally,  the  males  are 
smaller  than  the  females,  especially  in  the  imago  state. 
There  are  many  species,  belonging  to  different  orders— 
as,  for  instance,  certain  moths  and  butterflies — in  which 
this  superiority  is  very  marked.  The  males  are  either 
not  provided  with  any  functional  organs  for  eating,  or 
have  these  imperfectly  developed.  It  seems  evident  that 
their  sole  function  is  to  fertilise  the  female.  A  familiar 
and  interesting  example  is  furnished  by  the  common 
mosquitoes,  'among  whom  the  female  alone,  with  its 
harmful  sting,  is  known  to  the  unscientific  world.  The 
males,  frail  and  weaponless  little  creatures,  swarm  with 
the  females  in  the  early  summer,  and  then  pass  away, 
their  work  being  done. 

Dr.  Howard,  writing  of  the  mosquito  in  America, 
says — 

"  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  the  adult  male  mosquito  does  not 
necessarily  take  nourishment,  and  that  the  adult  female  does  not 
necessarily  rely  on  the  blood  of  warm-blooded  animals.  The 
mouth  parts  of  the  male  are  so  different  from  those  of  the  female 
that  it  is  probable  that,  if  it  feeds  at  all,  it  obtains  its  food  in  quite 
a  different  manner  from  the  female.  They  are  often  observed 
sipping  at  drops  of  water,  and  in  one  instance  a  fondness  for 
molasses  has  been  recorded."2 

1  Evolution  of  Sex,  p.  21;  Pure  Sociology,  pp.  316-317. 

2  "  Not'.'s  on  the  Mosquitoes  of  the  United  States,"  by  L.  O.  Howard, 
Bulletin  No.  25,  New  Series,  U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture,  Division 
of  Entomology,  1900,  p.  12.     Quoted  by  Lester  Ward,  Pure  Sociology, 
P-  3i7- 


THE  EARLY   POSITION   OF  THE   SEXES    57 

We  find  many  examples  of  such  structural  modifica- 
tions acquired  for  the  purpose  of  adapting  the  sexes  to 
different  modes  of  life.  Darwin  notes  that  the  females 
of  certain  flies  are  blood-suckers,  whilst  the  males,  living 
on  flowers,  have  mouths  destitute  of  mandibles.1  The 
females  are  carnivorous,  the  males  herbivorous.  It 
would  be  easy  to  bring  forward  many  further  examples 
among  the  invertebrates  in  which  the  differences  between 
the  sexes  indicates  very  clearly  the  persistence  of  female 
superiority.  But  for  these  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  the 
works  of  Darwin  and  other  entomologists,  and  to  the 
many  interesting  cases  given  by  Professor  Lester  Ward. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  exceptions,  but  these  may  be 
explained  by  the  conditions  under  which  the  species  live. 
Even  when  we  ascend  the  scale  to  back-boned  animals, 
cases  are  not  wanting  in  which  the  early  superiority  in 
size  of  the  female  remains  unaltered.  The  smallest 
known  vertebrate,  Heterandria  formosa,  has  females 
very  considerably  larger  than  the  males.2  Among  fishes 
the  males  are  commonly  smaller  than  the  females,  who 
are  also,  as  a  rule,  considerably  more  numerous.3  This 
is  a  fact  that  fishermen  are  well  aware  of.  I  may  men- 
tion, as  an  example,  that  on  one  occasion  when  my 
husband  and  I  caught  twenty-five  trout  in  a  mountain 
lake  in  Wales  there  were  only  two  males  among  them. 
It  is  curious  to  find  that  any  care  of  offspring  that  is 
evident  among  fishes  is  usually  paternal.  This  furnishes 
another  instance  of  the  truth  so  necessary  to  learn  that 

1  Descent  of  Man,  p.  208. 
*  Science,  Vol.  Xv.,  Jan.  1902,  p.  30. 

3  Fulton,  Naturalist  to  the  Scottish  Fishery  Board.     Cited  in  Evo- 
lution of  Sex,  p.  22 ;  see  also  pp.  25,  272,  295. 


58  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

the  sex-relationships  may  assume  almost  any  form  to 
suit  the  varying  conditions  of  life. 

There  are  some  mammals  among  whom  the  sexes  do 
not  differ  appreciably  in  size  and  strength,  and  very  little 
or  not  at  all,  in  coloration  and  ornament.  Such  is  the 
case  with  nearly  all  the  great  family  of  rodents.  It  is 
also  the  case  with  the  Erinaceidae,  or  at  least  with  its 
typical  sub-family  of  hedgehogs.1  Even  among  birds, 
where  the  sex  instincts  have  attained  to  their  highest  and 
most  aesthetic  expression,  we  find  some  large  families — 
as,  for  example,  the  hawks — in  which  the  female  is 
usually  the  larger  and  finer  bird.2  Thus  the  adult  male 
of  the  common  sparrow-hawk  is  much  smaller  than  the 
female,  the  length  of  the  male  being  13  ins.,  wing  7*7  ins., 
and  that  of  the  female  15*4  ins.,  wing  9  ins.  The  male 
peregrine,  known  to  hawkers  as  the  tiercel,  is  greatly 
inferior  in  size  to  his  mate.  The  merlin,  the  osprey,  the 
falcon,  the  spotted  eagle,  the  golden  eagle,  the  gos-hawk, 
the  harrier,  the  buzzard,  the  eagle-owl,  and  other  species 
of  owls  are  further  examples  where  the  female  bird  is 
larger  than  the  male.  Among  many  of  these  families  the 
female  birds  very  closely  resemble  the  males,  and  where 
differences  in  colour  and  ornament  do  occur,  they  are 
slight. 

A  further  point  of  the  greatest  importance  to  us 
requires  to  be  made.  Wherever  amongst  the  birds  the 
sexes  are  alike  the  habits  of  their  lives  are  also  alike. 
The  female  as  well  as  the  male  obtains  food,  the  nest 
is  built  together,  and  the  young  are  cared  for  by  both 

1  Pure  Sociology,  pp.  317,  318. 

*  Birds  of  Britain,  by  J.  Lewis  Bonhote,  p.  208;  also  pp.  190-221. 


THE  BEEHIVE  AND  THE   SPIDER       59 

parents.  These  beautiful  examples  of  sex  equality 
among  the  birds  cannot  be  regarded  as  exceptions  that 
have  arisen  by  chance — a  reversal  of  the  usual  rule  of 
the  sexes ;  rather  they  show  the  persistence  of  the  earlier 
relations  between  the  female  and  the  male  carried  to  a 
finer  development  under  conditions  of  life  favourable  to 
the  female.  I  will  not  here  say  more  upon  this  subject, 
as  I  shall  have  to  refer  to  it  in  greater  detail  when  we 
come  to  consider  the  sexual  and  familial  habits  of  birds. 
I  will  only  add  that  in  their  delicacy  and  devotion  to 
each  other  and  to  their  offspring,  birds  in  their  unions 
have  advanced  to  a  much  further  stage  than  we  have  in 
our  marriages.  These  associations  of  our  ancestral 
lovers  claim  our  attentive  study. 


II. — Two  Examples — The  Beehive  and  the  Spider 

"  At  its  base  the  love  of  animals  does  not  differ  from  that  of  man." 
— DARWIN. 

For  vividness  of  argument  I  wish  in  a  brief  section  of 
this  chapter  to  make  a  digression  from  our  main  inquiry 
to  bring  forward  two  examples — extreme  cases  of  the 
imperious  action  of  the  sexual  instincts — in  which  we 
see  the  sexes  driven  to  the  performance  of  their  functions 
under  peculiar  conditions.  Both  occur  among  the  inverte- 
brates. I  have  left  the  consideration  of  them  until  now 
because  of  the  instructive  light  they  throw  upon  what  we 
are  trying  to  prove  in  this  first  attack  on  the  validity  of 
the  common  estimate  of  the  true  position  of  the  sexes  in 
Nature.  Let  us  begin  with  the  familiar  case  of  the  bees. 
As  every  one  knows,  these  truly  wonderful  insects  belong 


60  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

to  a  highly  evolved  and  complex  society,  which  may  be 
said  to  represent  a  very  perfected  and  extreme  socialism. 
In  this  society  the  vast  majority  of  the  population — the 
workers — are  sterile  females,  and  of  the  drones,  or  males, 
only  a  very  few  at  the  most  are  ever  functional.  Repro- 
duction is  carried  on  by  the  queen-mother.  The  lesson  to 
be  drawn  from  the  beehive  is  that  such  an  organisation 
has  evolved  a  quite  extraordinary  sacrifice  of  the  indi- 
vidual members,  notably  in  the  submergence  of  the  per- 
sonal needs  of  sex-function,  to  its  wider  racial  end.  It 
is  from  this  line  of  thought  that  I  wish  to  consider  it.  We 
have  (i)  the  drones,  the  fussing  males,  useless  except  for 
their  one  duty  of  fertilisation,  and  this  function  only  a  few 
actively  perform;  thus,  if  they  become  at  all  numerous 
they  are  killed  off  by  the  workers,  so  that  the  hives  may  be 
rid  of  them;  (2)  the  queen,  an  imprisoned  mother,  special- 
ised for  maternity,  her  sole  work  the  laying  of  the  eggs, 
and  incapable  of  any  other  function ;  her  brain  and  mind 
of  the  humblest  order,  she  being  unable  even  to  feed 
and  care  for  her  offspring ;  (3)  the  great  body  of  unsexed 
workers,  the  busy  sisters,  whose  duty  is  to  rear  the  young 
and  carry  out  all  the  social  activities  of  the  hive. 

What  a   strange,   perplexing   life-history !      What   a 
sacrifice  of  the  sexes  to  each  other  and  to  the  life-force.1 

1  A  similar  condition  will  be  found  in  the  even  more  complex  societary 
forms  of  ant-hills.  Among  the  vast  population  of  the  ants  all  the 
workers  and  soldiers  are  arrested  in  their  sexual  development,  remaining, 
as  it  were,  permanent  children  of  both  sexes.  It  seems  probable  that 
this  explains  the  limit  that  has  been  reached  in  the  evolution  of  these 
wonderful  creatures,  which  in  certain  directions  have  attained  to  an 
extraordinary  development,  and  have  then  become  curiously  and 
immovably  arrested.  See  Problems  of  Sex,  by  J.  A.  Thomson  and 
Prof.  Patrick  Geddes,  p.  24;  Mind  in  Animals,  by  Buchner,  p.  60; 
and  Woman  and  Labour,  by  Olive  Schreiner,  p.  78. 


THE   BEEHIVE   AND   THE   SPIDER       61 

It  seems  probable  that  these  active  workers  have  even 
succeeded  in  getting  rid  of  sexual  needs.  Yet  the 
maternal  instinct  persists  in  them,  and  has  survived  the 
productive  function;  it  may,  indeed,  be  said  to  be 
enlarged  and  ennobled,  for  their  affection  is  not  confined 
to  their  own  offspring,  but  goes  out  to  all  the  young  of 
the  association.  In  this  community  one  care  takes  pre- 
cedence of  all  others,  the  care  and  rearing  of  the  young. 
This  is  the  workers'  constant  occupation;  this  is  the 
great  duty  to  which  their  lives  are  sacrificed.  With 
them  maternal  love  has  expanded  into  social  affection. 
The  strength  of  this  sentiment  is  abundantly  proved. 
The  queen-bee,  the  feeble  mother,  has  the  greatest  pos- 
sible care  lavished  upon  her,  and  is  publicly  mourned 
when  she  dies.  If  through  any  ill-chance  she  happens 
to  perish  before  the  performance  of  her  maternal  duties, 
and  then  cannot  be  replaced,  the  sterile  workers  evince 
the  most  terrible  grief,  and  in  some  cases  themselves  die. 
It  would  almost  seem  that  they  value  motherhood  more 
for  being  themselves  deprived  of  it. 

Now,  how  does  this  history  from  the.  bee-hive  apply 
to  us?  Here  you  have  before  you,  old  as  the  world 
itself,  one  of  the  most  urgent  problems  that  has  to  be 
faced  in  our  difficult  modern  society.  I  have  little  doubt 
that  something  which  is  at  least  analogous  to  the  sterilisa- 
tion of  the  female  bees  is  present  among  ourselves.  The 
complexity  of  our  social  conditions,  resulting  in  the  great 
disproportion  between  the  number  of  the  sexes,  has 
tended  to  set  aside  a  great  number  of  women  from  the 
normal  expression  of  their  sex  functions.  Among  these 
women  a  class  appears  to  be  arising  who  are  turning 


62  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

away  voluntarily  from  love  and  motherhood.  Many  of 
them  are  undoubtedly  women  of  fine  character.  These 
"  Intellectuals  "  suggest  that  women  shall  keep  them- 
selves free  from  the  duties  of  maternity  and  devote  their 
energies  thus  conserved,  to  their  own  emancipation  and 
for  work  in  the  world  which  needs  them  so  badly.  But 
the  biological  objection  to  any  such  proposition  is  not  far 
to  seek.  No  one  who  thinks  straight  can  countenance  a 
plan  which  thus  leaves  maternity  to  the  less  intellectual 
woman — to  a  docile,  domestic  type,  the  parallel  of  the 
stupid  parasitic  queen-bee.  Mind  counts  in  the  valua- 
tion of  offspring  as  well  as  physical  qualities.  The  split- 
ting of  one  sex  into  two  contrasted  varieties,  which  we 
see  in  its  completed  development  in  the  bee-hive,  cannot 
be  an  ideal  that  can  even  be  worth  while  for  us.  It 
means  an  end  to  all  further  progress. 

There  is  another  group  of  women  who  wish  to  bear 
children,  but  who  seem  to  be  anxious  to  reduce  the  father 
to  the  position  of  the  drone-bee.  He  is  to  have  no  part 
in  the  child  after  its  birth.  The  duty  of  caring  for  it 
and  bringing  it  up  is  to  be  undertaken  by  the  mother, 
aided,  when  necessary,  by  the  State.  This  is  a  terrible 
injustice  against  the  father  and  the  child.  It  seems  to 
me  to  be  the  great  and  insuperable  difficulty  against  any 
scheme  of  State  Endowment  of  Motherhood.  I  cannot 
enter  into  this  question  now,  and  will  only  state  my  belief 
that  a  child  belongs  by  natural  right  to  both  its  parents. 
The  primitive  form  of  the  matriarchal  family,  which  we 
shall  study  later,  is  realised  in  its  most  exaggerated  form 
by  the  bees  and  ants.  In  human  societies  we  find  onlv 
imitations  of  this  system.  And  here,  again,  there  is  a 


THE   BEEHIVE   AND  THE   SPIDER       63 

lesson  necessary  for  us  to  remember.  Any  ideal  that 
takes  the  father  from  the  child,  and  the  child  from  its 
father,  giving  it  only  to  the  mother,  is  a  step  backward 
and  not  forward. 

And  in  case  any  woman  is  inclined  still  to  admire  the 
position  of  the  female  worker-bees,  so  free  in  labour, 
being  liberated  from  sexual  activity,  it  were  well  to  con- 
sider the  sacrifice  at  which  such  freedom  is  gained. 
These  workers  have  highly-developed  brains,  but  most 
of  them  die  young.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  each  one 
carries  her  poisoned  sting — no  new  or  strange  weapon, 
but  a  transformation  of  a  part  of  her  very  organ  of 
maternity — the  ovipositor,  or  egg-placer,  with  which  the 
queen-mother  lays  each  egg  in  its  appointed  place.1 

Do  "  the  Intellectuals "  understand  what  they  really 
want?  Those  women  who  are  raising  the  cry  increas- 
ingly for  individual  liberty,  without  considering  the 
results  which  may  follow  from  such  a  one-sided  growth 
both  to  themselves  and  to  the  race — let  them  pause  to 
remember  the  price  paid  by  the  sterile  worker-bee.  Is  it 
unfair  to  suggest  that  any  such  shirking  for  the  gains  of 
personal  freedom  of  their  woman's  right  and  need  of 
love  and  child-bearing  may  lead  in  the  psychical  sphere 
to  a  result  similar  to  the  transformation  of  the  sex-organ 
of  the  bee ;  and  that,  giving  up  the  power  of  life,  they  will 
be  left  the  possessor  of  the  stinging  weapon  of  death ! 
Some  such  considerations  may  help  women  to  decide 
whether  it  is  better  to  be  a  mother  or  a  sterile  worker. 

The  second  example  I  want  to  consider  is  that  of  the 

1  Problems  of  Sex,  p.  34.  I  would  recommend  this  admirable  little 
book  to  all  students. 


64  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

common  spider,  whose  curious  courtship  customs  are 
described  by  Darwin.1  Here  we  find  the  relatively 
gigantic  female  seizing  and  devouring  the  tiny  male 
fertiliser,  as  he  seeks  to  perform  the  only  duty  for  which 
he  exists.  This  is  a  case  of  female  superiority  carried 
to  a  savage  conclusion.  The  male  in  these  courtships 
often  has  to  risk  his  life  many  times,  and  it  seems  only 
to  be  by  an  accident  that  he  ever  escapes  alive  from  the 
embraces  of  his  infuriated  partner.  I  will  give  an 
example,  taken  from  the  mantes,  or  praying  insect, 
where,  though  the  difference  in  size  between  the  sexes 
is  much  less  than  among  many  spiders,  the  ferocity  of  the 
female  is  extraordinary.  This  case  is  quoted  by  Pro- 
fessor Lester  Ward,2  who  gives  it  on  the  authority  of 
Dr.  L.  O.  Howard,  one  of  the  best-known  entomologists— 

"A  few  days  since  I  brought  a  male  or  Mantes  Carolina  to  a 
friend  who  had  been  keeping  a  solitary  female  as  a  pet.  Placing 
them  in  the  same  jar,  the  male,  in  alarm,  endeavoured  to  escape. 
In  a  few  minutes  the  female  succeeded  in  grasping  him.  She  bit 
off  his  left  front  tarsus  and  consumed  the  tibia  and  femur.  Next 
she  gnawed  out  his  left  eye.  At  this  the  male  seemed  to  realise 
his  proximity  to  one  of  the  opposite  sex,  and  began  vain  endeav- 
ours to  mate.  The  female  next  ate  up  his  right  front  leg,  and 
then  entirely  decapitated  him,  devouring  his  head  and  gnawing 
into  his  thorax.  Not  until  she  had  eaten  all  his  thorax,  except 
about  three  millimetres  did  she  stop  to  rest.  All  this  while  the 
male  had  continued  in  his  vain  attempt  to  obtain  entrance  at  the 
valvula,  and  he  now  succeeded,  and  she  voluntarily  spread  the 
parts  open,  and  union  took  place.  She  remained  quiet  for  four 
hours,  and  the  remnant  of  the  male  gave  occasional  signs  of  life, 
by  a  movement  of  one  of  his  remaining  tarsi  for  three  hours. 
The  next  morning  she  had  entirely  rid  herself  of  her  spouse,  and 
nothing  but  his  wings  remained." 

1  Descent  of  Man,  Vol.  I.  p.  329. 

*  Pure  Sociology,  p.  316  ;  Science,  Vol.  VIII.,  Oct.  1886,  p.  326. 
Letter  by  Dr.  L.  O.  Howard. 


THE   BEEHIVE  AND   THE   SPIDER       65 

You  will  think,  perhaps,  that  this  extreme  case  of 
female  ferocity  has  little  bearing  upon  our  sexual  pas- 
sions. But  consider.  I  have  not  quoted  it,  as  is  done 
by  Professor  Ward,  to  prove  the  existence  of  the 
superiority  of  the  female  in  Nature.  No,  rather  I  want 
to  suggest  a  lesson  that  may  be  wrested  by  us  from  these 
first  courtships  in  the  life  histories  of  the  sexes.  I  spoke 
at  the  beginning  of  this  biological  section  of  my  book 
of  the  warnings  that  surely  would  come  as  we  traced  the 
evolution  of  our  love-passions  from  those  of  our  pre- 
human ancestors.  We  are  too  apt  to  ignore  the  tremen- 
dous force  that  the  sex-impulse  has  gathered  from  its 
incalculably  long  history.  As  animals  exhibit  in  their 
love-matings  the  analogies  of  the  human  virtue,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  find  the  occurrence  of  parallel  vices.  Let 
us  look  for  a  moment  at  this  in  the  light  of  the  fierce 
love-contest  of  the  female  spider. 

Of  this  habit  there  are  various  explanations;  the  pre- 
valent one  regards  the  spider  as  an  anomalous  exception ; 
the  ferocity  and  superiority  of  size  in  the  female  not 
easily  to  be  explained.  This  is,  I  think,  not  so.  Is  it 
not  rather  a  picture,  with  the  details  crudely  emphasised, 
of  the  action  of  Life-Force  of  which  the  sexes  are  both 
the  helpless  victims?  Whether  we  look  backward  to 
the  beginning,  where  the  exhausted  male-cell  seeks  the 
female  in  incipient  sexual  union,  or  onwards  through 
the  long  stages  of  sex-evolution  to  our  own  love-passions, 
this  is  surely  true. 

Let  me  try  to  make  this  clearer  by  an  example.  It 
would  seem  but  a  small  step  from  the  female  spider,  so 
ruthlessly  eating  up  her  lover,  to  the  type  of  woman 


66  THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

celebrated  by  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  immortal  Ann.  I 
recall  a  woman  friend  saying  to  me  once,  "  We  may  not 
like  it,  and,  of  course,  we  refuse  to  own  to  it,  but  there 
is  something  of  Ann  in  every  woman."  I  need  not  recall 
to  you  Ann's  pursuit  of  her  victim,  Tanner,  nor  his  futile 
efforts  to  escape.  Here,  as  so  often  he  has  done,  Mr. 
Shaw  has  presented  us  in  comedy  with  a  philosophy  of 
life.  You  believe,  perhaps,  the  fiction,  still  brought 
forward  by  many  who  ought  to  know  better,  that  in  love 
woman  is  passive  and  waits  for  man  to  woo  her.  I  think 
no  woman  in  her  heart  believes  this.  She  knows,  by 
instinct,  that  Nature  has  unmistakably  made  her  the 
predominant  partner  in  all  that  relates  to  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  race ;  she  knows  this  in  spite  of  all  fictions  set 
up  by  men.  Have  they  done  this,  as  Mr.  Shaw  suggests, 
to  protect  themselves  against  a  too  humiliating  aggres- 
siveness of  the  woman  in  following  the  driving  of  the 
Life-Force?  This  pretence  of  male  superiority  in  the 
sexual  relation  is  so  shallow  that  it  is  strange  how  it  can 
have  imposed  on  any  one. 

I  wish  to  state  here  quite  definitely  what  I  hold  to  be 
true;  the  condition  of  female  superiority  with  which 
sexuality  began  has  in  this  connection  persisted.  In 
every  case  the  relation  between  woman  and  man  is  the 
same — she  is  the  pursuer,  he  the  pursued  and  disposed 
of.  Nothing  can  or  should  alter  this.  The  male  from 
the  very  beginning  has  been  of  use  from  Nature's  point 
of  view  by  assisting  the  female  to  carry  on  life.  It  is 
the  fierce  hunger  of  the  male,  increasing  in  strength 
through  the  long  course  of  time,  which  places  him  in 
woman's  power.  Man  is  the  slave  of  woman,  often  when 


THE   BEEHIVE   AND   THE   SPIDER       67 

least  he  thinks  so,  and  still  woman  uses  her  power,  even 
like  the  spider,  not  infrequently,  for  his  undoing. 

Here,  indeed,  is  a  warning  causing  us  to  think.  The 
touch  of  Nature  that  makes  the  whole  world  kin  is 
nowhere  more  manifest  than  in  sex;  that  absorption 
of  the  male  by  the  female  to  which  life  owes  its  continua- 
tion, its  ecstasy,  and  its  pain.  It  has  seemed  to  me  it 
is  here  in  the  primitive  relations  of  the  sexes  that  we 
may  find  the  clue  to  many  of  those  wrongs  which  women 
have  suffered  at  the  hands  of  men.  Man,  acting  instinct- 
ively, has  rebelled,  not  so  much,  I  think,  against  woman 
as  against  this  driving  hunger  within  himself,  which 
forces  him  helpless  into  her  power.  Like  the  fish  that 
cannot  resist  the  fly  of  the  fisherman,  even  when  experi- 
ence has  taught  him  to  fear  the  hidden  barb,  he  struggles 
and  fights  for  his  life  to  escape  as  he  realises  too  late  the 
net  into  which  his  hunger  has  brought  him. 

But  we  may  learn  more  than  this ;  another  truth  of  even 
deeper  importance  to  us.  It  is  because  of  this  superiority 
of  the  female  in  the  sexual  relationship  that  women  must 
be  granted  their  claim  for  emancipation.  Here  is  the 
reason  stronger  than  all  others.  Nature  has  placed  in 
women's  hands  so  tremendous  a  power  that  the  dangers 
are  too  great  for  such  power  to  be  left  to  the  direction  of 
untrained  and  unemancipated  women.  Above  all  it  is 
necessary  that  each  woman  understands  her  own  sexual 
nature,  and  also  that  of  her  lover,  that  she  may  realise 
in  full  knowledge  the  tremendous  force  of  sexual-hunger 
which  drives  him  to  her,  equalled,  as  I  believe,  by  the 
desire  within  herself,  which  claims  him  to  fulfil  through 
her  Nature's  great  central  purpose  of  continuing  the  race. 


F  2 


68  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

To  women  has  been  granted  the  guardianship  of  the 
Life-Force.  It  is  time  that  each  woman  asks  herself  how 
she  is  fulfilling  this  trust. 

It  is  the  possession  of  this  power  in  the  sexual  sphere 
which  lends  real  importance  to  even  the  feeblest  attempts 
of  women  to  prepare  themselves  to  meet  the  duties  in  the 
new  paths  that  are  being  opened  to  them.  Women  have 
now  entered  into  labour.  They  are  claiming  freedom 
to  develop  themselves  by  active  participation  in  that 
struggle  with  life  and  its  conditions  whereby  men  have 
gained  their  development.  From  thousands  of  women 
to-day  the  cry  is  rising,  "  Give  us  free  opportunity,  and 
the  training  that  will  fit  us  for  freedom."  Not,  as  so 
many  have  mistakenly  thought,  that  women  may  compete 
with  men  in  a  senseless  struggle  for  mastery,  but  in  order 
first  to  learn,  and  afterwards  to  perform,  that  work  in 
society  which  they  can  do  better  than  men.  What  such 
work  is  it  must  be  women's  purpose  to  find  out.  But 
before  this  is  possible  to  be  decided  all  fields  of  activity 
must  be  open  for  them  to  enter.  And  this  women  must 
claim,  not  for  themselves  chiefly;  but  because  they  are 
the  bearers  of  race-life,  and  also  to  save  men  from  any 
further  misuse  of  their  power.  Then  working  together 
as  lovers  and  comrades,  women  and  men  may  come  to 
understand  and  direct  those  deep-rooted  forces  of  sex, 
which  have  for  so  long  driven  them  helpless  to  the 
wastage  of  life  and  love. 

I  would  ask  all  those  who  deny  this  modern  claim  of 
women  to  consider  in  all  seriousness  the  two  cases  I  have 
brought  forward — that  of  the  bee-hives,  and  even  more 
the  destruction  by  the  female  spider  of  her  male  lover. 


THE   BEEHIVE   AND   THE   SPIDER       69 

That  they  have  their  parallel  in  our  society  to-day  is  a 
fact  that  few  will  deny.  I  have  tried  to  show  the  real 
danger  that  lurks  in  every  form  of  sex-parasitism.  It 
would  lead  us  too  far  from  our  purpose  to  comment  in 
further  detail  on  the  suggestions  offered  by  these  curious 
examples  of  sex-martyrs  among  our  earliest  ancestral 
lovers.  Those  whose  eyes  are  not  blinded  will  not  fail 
to  see. 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EARLY  RELATIONSHIP  OF  THE  SEXES 

Summary  of  conclusions  arrived  at  in  the  previous  chapters — The 
necessity  of  a  further  examination  of  sexual  love  among  our  pre- 
human ancestors — The  question  approached  from  a  different  point 
of  view — The  impelling  motive  of  love  the  union  of  two  cells — 
Hermaphroditism — Its  various  forms — The  first  step  in  the  ladder 
of  sex — Reproduction  among  fishes — The  next  step — The  attrac- 
tion of  one  sex  for  the  other — The  female  and  the  male  begin  to 
associate  in  pairs — Illustration  of  the  salmon — Sexual  differences 
become  more  frequent — The  males  distinguished  by  bright  colours 
and  ornamental  appendages — Sexual  passion  and  jealous  combats 
of  rival  males — Examples — A  further  step — The  note  of  physical 
fondness — The  male  plays  with  the  female,  wooing  and  caressing 
her — The  love  play  often  extraordinary — The  case  of  the  stickle- 
back— The  males,  passionate,  polygamous,  and  jealous — The 
paternal  instinct  of  the  stickleback — Nature  making  experiments 
in  parenthood — Parental  forethought  among  insects — Illustrations 
of  male  parental  care — The  obstetric  frog — Further  examples  of 
primitive  animal  courtships — A  psychic  attraction  added  to  the 
physical — The  courtship  of  the  octopus — A  final  step — The  co- 
operation of  the  sexes  in  work  together — The  dung-rolling  beetle — 
The  significance  of  these  early  courtships — Analogy  with  our 
sex-passions — The  love-process  identical  throughout  the  whole 
of  We. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EARLY  RELATIONSHIP  OF  THE  SEXES 

"  Great  effects  are  everywhere  produced  in  animated  Nature,  by 
minute  causes.  .  .  .  Think  of  how  many  curious  phenomena  sexual 
relation  gives  rise  to  in  animal  life ;  think  of  the  results  of  love  in  human 
life ;  now  all  this  had  for  its  raison  d'etre  the  union  of  two  cellules.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  organic  act  which  approaches  this  one  in  power  and  force 
of  differentiation." — HAECKEL. 

WHAT  is  the  practical  outcome  to  us  of  this  early 
relation  of  the  sexes  in  Nature's  scheme? 

In  attempting  to  answer  this  question  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  take  an  apparently  circuitous  route,  going  back 
over  some  of  the  ground  that  already  has  been  covered ; 
to  examine  in  further  detail  the  process  of  sexual  love 
as  it  presents  itself  among  our  pre-human  ancestors.  It 
is  well  worth  while  to  do  this.  If  we  can  find  in  this  way 
an  answer,  we  shall  come  very  near  to  solving  many  of 
the  most  difficult  of  woman's  problems.  At  the  same 
time  we  shall  have  made  clear  how  deep-rooted  are  the 
foundations  of  those  passions  of  sex  which  agitate  the 
human  heart,  and  are  still  the  most  powerful  force 
amongst  us  to-day. 

In  the  light  of  the  facts  I  have  briefly  summarised,  we 
have  been  able  in  the  former  chapters  to  indicate  how 
sexuality  began,  with  the  male  element  developed  from 
the  primary  female  organism,  his  sole  function  being 
her  impregnation;  how  this  was  seized  upon  and  con- 
tinued through  the  advantage  gained  by  the  mixing  of 

73 


74  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

the  two  germ-plasms,  which,  on  the  whole,  resembling 
one  another  somewhat  closely,  yet  differ  in  details,  and 
thus  introduce  new  opportunities  of  progress  into  the 
life-elements;  and  how,  in  this  way,  differentiation  of 
function  between  the  male  and  the  female  was  set  up. 
We  saw,  further,  how  the  development  of  the  male,  at 
first  often  living  parasitically  upon  the  female,  con- 
tinued; but  how,  under  certain  conditions  of  life,  such 
parasitism  was  transferred  to  the  female,  so  that  it  is  she 
who  is  sacrificed  to  the  sex  function ;  and,  lastly,  taking 
the  extreme  cases  of  the  bee-hive  and  the  spider,  we 
suggested  certain  warnings  to  be  drawn  from  these  early 
parasitic  relations  between  the  sexes.  It  is  necessary 
now  to  penetrate  deeper;  to  trace  more  fully  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  sexual  passion,  which,  from  this  line  of 
thought,  may  be  said  to  be  the  process  which  carried  on 
the  development  and  modification  of  the  male,  creating 
him — as  surely  we  may  believe — by  the  love-choice  of 
the  female.  To  do  this  we  have  once  more  to  return  to 
the  consideration,  under  a  somewhat  new  aspect,  of  the 
relative  position  of  the  female  and  the  male  in  their  love- 
courtships  in  some  examples  among  the  humbler  types 
of  animal  life.  After  these  have  been  considered,  not 
only  in  themselves,  but  in  the  relation  they  bear  to  the 
higher  forms  which  developed  from  them,  we  shall  be  in 
a  surer  position  to  re-ascend  the  ladder  of  life.  We 
shall  come  to  understand  the  biological  significance  of 
love — something  of  the  complexity  and  beauty  and  force 
of  the  passions  that  we  have  inherited.  We  shall  find  also 
the  causes,  so  important  to  us,  which  led  to  the  reversal 
of  the  early  superiority  of  the  female  in  size  and  often 


EARLY  RELATIONSHIP  OF  THE  SEXES  75 

in  function,  replacing  it  by  the  superiority  of  the  male. 
Then,  and  then  only,  shall  we  be  ready  to  approach  the 
difficult  problems  of  the  sexual  differences  which  have 
persisted,  separating  women  from  men  among  human 
races,  and  to  estimate  if  these  differences  are  to  be  con- 
sidered as  belonging  essentially  to  the  female  and  the 
male,  or  whether  they  have  arisen  through  special 
environmental  causes. 

If  we  look  back  anew  to  the  very  start  of  sexuality, 
where  two  cells  flow  together,  thereby  to  continue  life, 
we  find  the  very  simplest  expression  of  the  sex-appetite. 
There  is  what  may  be  called  instinctive  physical  attrac- 
tion, and  the  whole  process  is  very  much  a  satisfaction 
of  protoplasmic  hunger.1  Now  it  was,  of  course,  a  long 
step  from  this  incipient  cell-union  to  the  varied  function 
of  sex  in  animal  life,  and  it  was  a  long  process  from  these 
to  the  yet  more  complex  manifestation  of  the  love- 
passion  among  men.  But  in  reality  the  source  of  all 
love  is  the  same;  throughout  the  entire  relations  of  the 
sexes  we  find  this  cell-hunger  instinct;  in  every  case,  it 
matters  not  how  fine  and  ennobling  the  love  may  be,  the 
single,  original,  impelling  motive  is  the  union  of  two 
cells — the  male  element  and  the  female  driven  to  seek 
one  another  to  continue  life.  I  find  it  necessary  to  insist 
on  this  physical  basis  of  all  love.  Women  are  so  apt 
to  go  astray.  It  is  one  of  the  vicious  tendencies  of  the 
female  mind  to  think  that  the  needs  of  sex  are  something 
to  be  resisted.  Let  us  face  the  truth  that  this  great  force 
of  love  has  its  roots  fastened  in  cell-hunger,  and  it  dies 
when  its  roots  are  cut  away. 

1  Evolution  of  Sex,  p.  265. 


76  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

It  is  evident  that  at  first  this  sex-appetite  cannot  have 
been  purposive,  but  acted  subconsciously  by  a  kind  of 
interaction  between  the  want  of  the  organism  and  its 
power  of  function.  Even  in  many  complex  multicellular 
organisms  the  liberation  of  the  sex-elements  continues 
very  passive;  and  although  the  differentiation  of  the 
sexual-cells  is  already  complete  in  plants  and  animals 
comparatively  low  in  the  scale,  it  at  first  makes  little 
difference  in  the  development  of  the  other  parts  of  the 
individual.  Among  many  lower  animals,  and  most 
plants,  each  individual  develops  within  itself  both  kinds 
of  cells — that  is,  female  and  male.  This  union  of  the 
two  sex  functions  in  one  organism  is  known  as  herma- 
phroditism.  There  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  once 
common  to  all  organisms,  an  intermediate  stage  in  the 
sex-progress,  after  the  differentiation  of  the  sexes  had 
been  accomplished. 

Hermaphroditism  must  be  regarded  as  a  temporary  or 
transitional  form.1  It  is  found  persisting  in  various 
degrees  in  many  species — snails,  earth-worms,  and 
leeches,  for  example,  can  act  alternately  as  what  we  call 
male  and  female.  Other  animals  are  hermaphrodite  in 
their  young  stages,  though  the  sexes  are  separate  in  adult 

1  There  are  some  who  believe  that  the  higher  animals  pass  through  a 
state  of  embryonic  hermaphroditism,  but  decisive  proof  of  this  is 
wanting.  In  this  connection  the  structural  resemblance  of  the  male 
and  female  sexual  organs  should  be  noticed ;  in  each  sex  there  is  a 
complete  but  rudimentary  set  of  parallels  to  the  organs  of  the  other  sex. 
This  primitive  and  fundamental  unity  of  the  male  and  female  sex 
organs  is  very  significant.  Indeed,  the  whole  question  of  hermaphro- 
ditism is  one  of  deep  suggestion  when  these  embryological  facts  are 
brought  into  relation  with  the  abnormalities  which  occur  in  the  ex- 
pression of  the  sexual  impulses.  See  Evolution  of  Sex,  chapter  on 
"  Hermaphroditism,"  pp.  65-80 ;  also  Bloch,  Sexual  Life  of  Our 
Times,  pp.  11-12,  551-554.  Weininger's  Sex  and  Character,  pp.  6,  7, 
J3»  45.  is  also  interesting. 


EARLY   RELATIONSHIP   OF   THE   SEXES     77 

life,  as,  for  example,  tadpoles,  where  the  bisexuality  of 
youth  sometimes  linger  into  adult  life.  Cases  of 
partial  hermaphroditism  are  very  common,  while  in  many 
species  which  are  normally  unisexual,  a  casual  or  abnor- 
mal hermaphroditism  occurs — this  may  be  seen  in  the 
common  frog,  and  is  frequent  among  certain  fishes,  when 
sometimes  the  fish  is  male  on  one  side  and  female  on 
the  other,  or  male  anteriorly  and  female  posteriorly.1 

There  would  seem  to  be  a  constant  tendency  to  escape 
from  these  early  and  experimental  methods  of  reproduc- 
tion, and  to  secure  true  sexual  union,  with  complete 
separation  of  the  sexes  and  differences  in  the  parents. 
We  have  noticed  the  many  instances  of  tiny  comple- 
mental  males,  in  connection  with  hermaphrodite  forms, 
which,  as  Darwin  states,  must  have  arisen  from  the 
advantage  ensuring  cross-fertilisation  in  the  females  who 
harbour  them.  Even  among  hermaphrodite  slugs  we 
find  very  definite  evidence  of  the  advance  of  love;  and 
in  certain  species  an  elaborate  process  of  courtship, 
taking  the  form  of  slow  and  beautiful  movements,  pre- 
cedes the  act  of  reproduction.2  Some  snails,  again,  are 
provided  with  a  special  organ,  a  slightly  twisted  limy 
dart,  which  is  used  to  stimulate  sexual  excitement.3 

1  A  similar  condition  has  been  noted  among  butterflies,  where,  in 
some  cases,  differences  in  the  colouring  of  the  wings  on  two  sides  has 
been  found  to  correspond  to  an  internal  co-existence  of  the  male  and 
female  sex-organs.  It  seems  probable  that  this  interesting  phenomenon 
of  abnormal  hermaphroditism  is  of  much  commoner  occurrence  than 
the  cases  that  have  been  recorded  (Evolution  of  Sex,  p.  67). 

1  "  The  Love  of  Slugs,"  article  by  James  Bladon,  Zoologist,  Vol.  XV., 
1857,  p.  6272. 

3  "  Molluscs,"  article  by  Rev.  L.  H.  Cooke,  Cambridge  Natural  History, 
Vol.  III.  p.  143.  Both  these  cases  are  quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis  in 
his  illuminative  "  Analysis  of  the  Sexual  Impulse,"  the  opening  chapters 
in  the  third  volume  of  the  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex. 


78  THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

What  do  such  marvellous  manifestations,  low  down  in 
the  ladder  of  life,  go  to  prove,  if  not  that  there  must 
be  the  closest  identity  between  the  development  of  life 
and  the  evolution  of  love  ? 

These  examples  of  hermaphrodite  love  lead  us  for- 
ward to  a  further  step,  where  no  reproduction  takes  place 
without  the  special  activity  and  conjugation  of  two  kinds 
of  specialised  cells,  and  these  two  kinds  are  carried  about 
by  separate  individuals.  In  some  species — fishes,  for 
example — the  two  kinds  of  special  cells  meet  outside  the 
bodies  of  the  parents.  At  this  humble  level  the  sexes 
are  in  many  cases  very  like  one  another,  and  there  is, 
as  we  should  expect,  a  good  deal  of  haphazard  in  the 
production  of  offspring.  Among  fishes,  for  instance,  the 
eggs  and  sperms  are  liberated  into  the  sea,  or  the  shallow 
bed  of  a  river,  and,  if  the  sperms  (the  milt  of  the  males) 
are  placed  near  to  the  spot  where  the  eggs  (the  spawn) 
have  been  laid,  fertilisation  occurs,  for  within  a  short 
distance  the  sperms  are  attracted — in  a  way  that  is  imper- 
fectly understood — to  enter  the  eggs.  By  this  method 
there  is  of  necessity  great  waste  in  the  production  of 
offspring,  many  thousands  of  eggs  are  never  fertilised. 
The  union  of  the  sexual  cells  must  be  something  more 
than  haphazard  for  further  development.  There  must  be 
some  reason  inherent  in  the  female  or  male  inducing  to 
the  act  of  reproduction.  In  other  words,  there  must  be 
a  psychic  interest  preceding  the  sex  act.  In  this  way  a 
higher  grade  is  reached  when  the  presence  of  one  sex 
attracts  the  other.  Gradually  the  female  and  the  male 
begin  to  associate  in  pairs. 

We  may  illustrate  this  important  step  in  the  evolution 
of  love  by  reference  to  the  familiar  case  of  the  salmon. 


EARLY   RELATIONSHIP   OF  THE   SEXES     79 

The  male  courts  the  female  and  is  her  attendant  during 
the  breeding  season,  fertilising  the  deposited  ova  in  her 
presence.  He  guards  her  from  the  attention  of  all  other 
males,  fighting  all  rivals  fiercely,  with  a  special  weapon, 
developed  at  this  time,  in  the  form  of  a  hooked  lower 
jaw  with  teeth  often  more  than  half-an-inch  long. 
Darwin  records  a  case,  told  to  him  by  a  river-keeper, 
where  he  found  three  hundred  dead  male  salmon,  all 
killed  through  battle.1  Thus  even  among  cold-blooded 
fishes  (though  it  may  appear  folly  to  use  the  word  "  love  " 
in  this  connection)  a  very  clear  likeness  with  our  human 
sex-passions  can  be  traced. 

Sex  differences  now  become  more  frequent.  The 
males  are  in  some  cases  distinguished  by  bright  colours 
and  ornamental  appendages.  During  their  amours  and 
duels  certain  male  fishes  flash  with  beautiful  and  glowing 
colours.  Reptiles  exhibit  the  same  form  of  sexual- 
passion,  and  jealous  combat  of  rival  males.  The  rattle 
of  certain  snakes  is  supposed  to  act  as  a  love-call. 
Snakes  of  different  sexes  appear  to  feel  some  affection 
for  each  other  when  confined  together  in  cages.  Romanes 
relates  the  interesting  fact  that  when  a  cobra  is  killed, 
its  mate  is  often  found  on  the  spot  a  day  or  two  after- 
wards. Darwin  cites  an  instance  of  the  pairing  in  spring 
of  a  Chinese  species  of  lizard,  where  the  couples  appear 
to  have  considerable  fondness  for  one  another.  If  one 
is  captured,  the  other  drops  from  the  tree  to  the  ground 
and  allows  itself  to  be  caught,  presumably  from  despair.2 

A  further  development  is  reached  by  those  animals 

1  Trout  also  fight  during  the  breeding  season.  Chapters  on  Human 
Love,  by  Geoffrey  Mortimer  (W.  M.  Gallichan),  pp.  13-14. 

1  Evolution  of  Sex,  pp.  625-626.     Chapters  on  Human  Love,  p.  14. 


80  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

among  whom  what  has  well  been  called  "the  note  of 
physical  fondness  "  is  first  sounded.  We  find  the  males 
playing  with  the  female,  wooing  and  caressing  her,  it 
may  be  dancing  with  her.  The  love-play  is  often  extra- 
ordinary,1 as,  for  instance,  in  the  well-known  case  of  the 
stickleback.  Not  only  does  the  male  woo  the  female  with 
passionate  dances,  but  by  means  of  its  own  secretions  it 
builds  a  nest  in  the  river  weeds.  The  males  at  this 
season  are  transformed,  glowing  with  brilliant  colours, 
and  literally  putting  on  a  wedding  garment  of  love.  The 
stickleback  is  passionate,  polygamous  and  very  jealous 
of  rivals.  His  guardianship  of  the  nest  and  vigilance 
in  protecting  the  young  cannot  be  observed  without 
admiration. 

It  is  certainly  significant  to  find  one  of  the  earliest 
instances  of  genuine  parental  affection  exhibited  by  the 
male.  This  reversal  of  the  usual  role  of  the  sexes  is 
common  among  fishes,  among  whom  care  of  offspring  is 
very  little  developed.  In  some  species  the  eggs  are 
carried  about  by  the  father — the  male  sea-horse,  for 
instance,  has  a  pouch  developed  for  this  purpose;  in 
other  cases  the  male  incubates,  or  cares  for  the  ova. 
Sometimes,  however,  it  is  the  female  who  performs  this 
duty,  but  the  known  cases  are  few.2  Some  exceedingly 
curious  examples  of  male  parental  care  occur  among  the 
amphibians.  One  of  the  most  interesting  is  that  of  the 
obstetric  frog,  where  the  male  helps  to  remove  the  eggs 
from  the  female,  then  twists  them  in  the  coils  around  its 

1  Problems  of  Sex,  by  J.  A.  Thomson  and  Prof.  Patrick   Geddes, 
p.  20. 

*  Evolution  of  Sex,  pp.  270-272,  295. 


EARLY  RELATIONSHIP  OF  THE  SEXES  81 

hind  legs  and  buries  himself  in  the  water,  until  the  in- 
cubation period  is  over  and  the  tadpoles  escape  and 
relieve  him  of  his  burden.  In  other  species  the  croaking 
sacs  of  the  males,  which  were  previously  used  for 
amatory  callings,  become  enlarged  to  form  cradles  for 
the  young.  There  are  also  instances  of  the  female  co- 
operating with  the  male  in  this  care  of  offspring.  Thus 
in  the  Surinam  toad  the  male  spreads  the  ova  on  the  back 
of  the  female,  where  skin  cavities  form  in  which  the  tad- 
poles develop.  In  other  cases  the  eggs  are  carried  in 
the  dorsal  pouches  of  the  females.  It  would  almost 
seem  that  in  this  early  time  Nature  was  making  experi- 
ments as  to  which  parent  was  the  better  fitted  to  rear  and 
protect  the  young ! 

But  let  us  return  to  our  present  examination  of  animal 
love-making.  In  many  diverse  forms  there  is  a  very 
remarkable  courtship  of  touch,  often  prolonged  and  with 
beautiful  refinements,  before  the  climax  is  reached,  when 
the  two  bodies  unite.  Racovitza 1  has  beautifully  de- 
scribed the  courtship  of  the  octopus,  which  is  carried  out 
with  considerable  delicacy,  and  not  brutally  as  before 
had  been  believed. 

"The  male  gently  stretches  out  his  third  arm  on  the  right  and 
caresses  the  female  with  its  extremity,  eventually  passing  it  into 
the  chamber  formed  by  the  mantle.  The  female  contracts  spas- 
modically, but  does  not  attempt  to  move.  They  remain  thus  about 
an  hour  or  more,  and  during  this  time  the  male  shifts  his  arm 
from  one  viaduct  to  the  other.  Finally,  he  withdraws  his  arm, 
caresses  her  with  it  for  a  few  moments,  and  then  replaces  it  with 
his  other  arm." 

1  Natural  Science,  Nov.  1894,  quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis,  Psychology 
of  Sex.  Vol.  III.  p.  30. 
O 


82  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

The  various  phenomena  of  primitive  animal  courtship 
may  be  illustrated  further  by  the  love-parades  of  butter- 
flies and  moths,  the  love-gambols  of  certain  newts,  the 
amatory  serenading  of  frogs,  the   fragrant  incense  of 
reptiles,  the  love-lights  of  glow-worms,  the  duels  of  many 
male  beetles  and  other  insects,  many  of  whom  have 
special  weapons  for  righting  with  their  rivals.     Among 
insects  the  sexes  commonly  associate  in  pairs,  and  it 
seems  certain  there  is  some  psychic  attraction  added  to 
the  primitive  tactile  courtship.     In  some  cases  the  asso- 
ciation  of   the   sexes   is   maintained   for   a   lengthened 
period,  with  many  hints  of  what  must  be  regarded  as 
love.     There  are  many  examples  also  of  parental  fore- 
thought, amounting  sometimes  to  a  sort  of  divining  pre- 
science, as  the  habit  of  certain  insects  in  preparing  and 
leaving  a  special  nourishment,  different  from  their  own 
food,  for  the  sustenance  of  the  future  larvae.     We  even 
find  instances  of  co-operation  of  the  sexes  in  work  to- 
gether, affording  a  first  hint  of  this  linking-force  to  the 
development  of  love  in  its  later  and  full  expression. 
Such  are  the  activities  of  the  dung-rolling  beetle,  where 
the  two  sexes  assist  each  other  in  their  curious  occupa- 
tion.    The  male  and  female  of  another  order  of  beetle 
(Lethms  cephalotes)  inhabit  the  same  cavity,  and  the 
virtuous  matron  is  said  greatly  to  resent  the  intrusion  of 
another  male.1 

In  insects,  as  in  the  higher  animals,  and  as  in  man, 
sexual  association  takes  many  different  forms.  But 
obviously  I  must  not  linger  over  these  early  types  of 
love.  My  object  is  to  bring  forward  examples,  which 

1  Evolution  of  Sex,  p.  265. 


EARLY  RELATIONSHIP  OF  THE  SEXES  83 

seem  to  me  useful  as  preliminary  studies  to  throw  light 
on  the  origin  of  sex-passion,  and  proving  that  the  love- 
process  throughout  the  whole  of  life  is  identical.  Those 
who  are  acquainted  with  the  work  of  Fabre,  "  The  Insects' 
Homer,"  will  have  no  difficulty  in  accepting  this.  The 
studies  he  has  given  us  of  wonderful  behaviour  of  insects, 
their  arts  and  crafts,  their  courtships  and  marriages, 
their  domestic  and  social  relationships,  opens  up  a  new 
drama  of  animal  life. 


G  8 


CONTENTS   OF    CHAPTER   V 

COURTSHIP,    MARRIAGE   AND   THE    FAMILY 

I. — Among  the  Birds  and  Mammals 

Courtship  and  marriage  among  birds  and  mammals — Every  form  of 
association  similar  to  human  marriage — A  high  standard  of  love- 
morality  among  birds—Monogamy,  polygamy,  and  polyandry — 
Cases  of  absolute  profligate  promiscuity — Suggestions  of  all  the 
sexual  sins  of  humanity — The  phenomena  of  courtship — The  law 
of  battle — Battles  of  mammals  and  male  gallinaceae — The  frenzy 
of  love — Where  supremacy  in  love  is  gained  by  force  the  males 
become  stronger  and  better  armed  than  the  females — Importance 
of  this — Gentler  ways  of  wooing — Esthetic  seductions — Courteous 
duels — The  note  of  joy  in  love  among  birds — Affectionate  partner- 
ships lasting  for  life — Frequency  of  monogamy  among  birds — Co- 
operation of  both  sexes  in  forming  the  home  and  caring  for  the 
young — The  amatory  dances  of  birds — Significance  of  dancing — 
Numerous  illustrations — The  use  of  song  and  decorative  plumage — 
Musical  seduction — ^Esthetic  constructions — The  extraordinary 
power  of  sex-hunger — General  propositions. 

II. — Further  Examples  of  Courtship,  Marriage  and  the 
Family  among  Birds 

Darwin's  theory  of  sexual-selection — Objections  to  this  by  Wallace  and 
others — An  explanation — The  true  object  of  courtship — The 
sexual  passion  the  origin  of  social  growth — A  rough  outline  of 
society  already  established  in  the  animal  kingdom — The  maternal 
and  the  paternal  family — The  former  the  most  frequent — The 
importance  of  the  female — Difference  between  the  secondary 
sexual  characters  of  the  male  and  the  female — Doubt  of  the  accepted 
view — Need  for  a  further  examination — Cases  among  birds  in  which 
the  female  equals  or  even  exceeds  the  male  in  size  and  strength — 
Beauty  tests  of  brilliant  plumage — Numerous  examples  of  almost 
identical  likeness  between  the  sexes — This  similarity  in  plumage 
occurs  in  some  of  the  most  brilliant  of  our  birds — The  interesting 
case  of  the  phalaropes  where  the  rdle  of  the  sexes  is  reversed — 
These  facts  point  to  an  error  in  the  accepted  opinion  as  to  the 
secondary  sexual  characters— Sexual  adornments  cannot  be  re- 
garded as  a  necessary  and  exclusive  adjunct  of  the  male — Prof. 
Lester  Ward's  Gynaeocratic  theory — Male  efflorescence — Among 
the  species  in  which  male  differentiation  has  gone  farthest  the 

85 


86  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

males  are  bad  fathers — Examples  to  prove  this — The  fathers  devoid 
of  affection  belong  to  the  less  intelligent  species — The  conclusion — 
An  extravagant  growth  of  the  secondary  sexual  characters  not 
favourable  to  the  highest  development  of  the  species — The  most 
oppressed  females  the  most  faithful  wives — The  highest  develop- 
ment in  the  beautiful  cases  in  which  the  sexes  are  more  alike,  equal 
in  capacity  and  co-operate  together  in  the  race-work — Individual 
fancies  of  females — The  case  of  a  female  wild  duck — Desire  for 
sexual  variety — Conjugal  fidelity  modified  by  the  conditions  of 
life — Civilisation  depraves  birds — General  observations — Love  the 
great  creative  force. 


CHAPTER    V 

COURTSHIP,    MARRIAGE    AND    THE    FAMILY 

I. — Among  the  Birds  and  Mammals 

"  The  principle  of  '  divergence  of  character  '  pervades  all  nature, 
from  the  lowest  groups  to  the  highest,  as  may  be  well  seen  in  the  class  of 
birds." — WALLACE. 

A  GREAT  step  in  advance  is  taken  when  we  come  to 
study  the  courtship  and  sexual  relationships  of  birds  and 
mammals.      There   are    many    examples,    in   particular 
among  birds,  of  a  beautiful  and  high  standard  of  love- 
morality.    To  the  physical  fondness  of  the  sexes  for  one 
another  there  is  now  added  a  wealth  of  what  must  be 
recognised  as  psychical  attraction,  which  finds  its  expres- 
sion in  many  diverse  ways.    We  shall  find  all  forms  of 
sexual  association,  very  similar  to  marriage  in  the  human 
species.     There  are  temporary  unions  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  procreation,  after  which  the  partners  separate 
and  cease  to  care  for  one  another.    Polygamy  is  frequent, 
polyandry  also  occurs,  and  there  are  many  cases  of  abso- 
lute profligate  promiscuity.     We  shall,  indeed,  find  the 
suggestion  of  all  the  sexual  sins  of  humanity,  every  form 
of  coquetry,  of  love-battles,  jealousy  and  the  like.   There 
are  as  well  many  examples  of  monogamic  unions  lasting 
for  the  lives  of  the  partners.    This  is  especially  the  case 
with  birds.     Among  the  higher  mammals  polygamy  is 
most  common,  but  permanent  unions  are  formed,  especi- 
ally among  the  anthropoid  apes.     Thus  strictly  mono- 

87 


88  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

gamous  marriages  are  frequent  among  gorillas  and 
orang-utans,  the  young  sometimes  remaining  with  their 
parents  to  the  age  of  six  years,  while  any  approach  to 
loose  behaviour  on  the  part  of  the  wife  is  severely 
punished  by  the  husband.1  We  find  both  the  matri- 
archate  and  patriarchate  family ;  and  we  may  observe  the 
greatest  difference  in  the  conduct  of  the  parents  in  their 
care  of  offspring.  Even  a  rapid  examination  of  these 
customs  is  worth  while,  for  they  cast  forward  many 
suggestions  on  our  sexual,  domestic,  and  social  relation- 
ships. 

Let  us  take  first  the  phenomena  of  courtship. 

It  is  possible  to  give  only  the  briefest  outline  of  this 
fascinating  subject.  We  will  begin  with  the  law-of- 
battle.  Courtship  without  combat  is  rare  among 
mammals;  it  is  less  common  in  many  species  of  birds. 
Special  offensive  and  defensive  weapons  for  use  in  these 
love-fights  are  found;  such  are  the  larger  canine  teeth 
of  many  male  mammals,  the  antlers  of  stags,  the  tusks 
of  elephants,  the  horns  of  antelopes,  goats,  oxen  and 
other  animals,  while  among  birds  the  spurs  of  the  cock 
and  allied  species  are  examples  of  sexual  weapons.3 

'  The  season  of  love  is  the  season  of  battle,"  says 
Darwin.  To  those  who  understand  love  there  will 
be  no  cause  of  surprise  in  these  procreative  explosions. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  such  combats  are  a  stimulus 
to  mutual  sexual  excitement  in  the  males  who  take  part 
in  them  and  the  female  who  watches  them.  Throughout 
Nature  love  only  reaches  its  goal  after  tremendous 

1  Havelock  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  422. 
3  Evolution  of  Sex,  p.  8. 


AMONG  THE   BIRDS   AND   MAMMALS     89 

expenditure  of  energy.  Courtship  is  the  prelude  to  love. 
The  question  is — what  form  it  shall  take  ?  It  is  this  that 
even  yet  we  have  not  decided.  But  the  importance  of 
courtship  cannot  be  overlooked.  We  must  regard  it  as 
the  servant  of  the  Life-force.  In  the  fine  saying  of 
Professor  Lloyd  Morgan,1  "  the  purpose  of  courtship 
reveals  itself  as  the  strong  and  steady  bending  of  the 
bow,  that  the  arrow  may  find  its  mark  in  a  biological 
end  of  the  highest  importance  in  the  survival  of  a  healthy 
and  vigorous  race." 

Even  the  most  timid  animals  will  fight  desperately 
under  the  stimulus  of  sex-passion.  Hares  and  moles 
battle  to  the  death  in  some  cases;  squirrels  and  beavers 
wound  each  other  severely.  Seals  grapple  with  tooth 
and  claw;  bulls,  deer  and  stallions  have  violent  en- 
counters, and  goats  use  their  curved  horns  with  deadly 
effect.2  The  elephant,  pacific  by  nature,  assumes  a  terrible 
fury  in  the  rutting  season.  Thus,  the  Sanskrit  poems 
frequently  use  the  simile  of  the  elephant  goaded  by  love 
to  express  the  highest  degree  of  strength,  nobility, 
grandeur  and  even  beauty.3  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
point  out  that  in  these  love-conflicts  we  may  find  the 
sources  of  our  own  brute  passions  of  jealousy,  and  the 
origin  of  duels,  murders  and  all  the  violent  crimes  com- 
mitted by  men  under  the  excitement  of  sexual  emotion 
—the  tares  among  the  wheat  of  love  that  drive  men 
mad  and  wild. 


1  Animal  Behaviour,  p.  265,  quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis,  Psychology 
of  Sex,  Vol.  III.  p.  28. 

*  Geoffrey  Mortimer  (W.  M.  Gallichan),  Chapters  on   Human   Love, 
pp.  17-18. 

*  Letourncau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  16. 


90  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

In  birds  it  is  among  the  gallinacese  that  love  incites 
the  male  with  warlike  fury.  The  barn-door  cock  is  the 
type  of  the  jealous  male — amorous,  vain  and  courageous.1 
It  must  be  noted  that  wheresoever  supremacy  in  love 
is  obtained  by  force  the  male  has  necessarily  become, 
through  the  action  of  selection,  stronger  and  better  armed 
than  the  female.  Among  birds,  where  the  law  of  battle 
largely  gives  place  to  a  gentler  wooing,  there  are  many 
species  in  which  the  female  is  larger  and  stronger  than 
the  male,  and  a  much  greater  number  where  there  is  no 
appreciable  difference  between  the  sexes.  These  prove 
what  we  have  already  established  among  the  inverte- 
brates, that  there  is  no  necessary  correlation  between 
weakness  and  the  female  sex.  But  to  this  question,  so 
important  in  its  bearing  on  the  relative  position  of  the 
sexes,  I  shall  return  later. 

The  acquisition  of  mates  does  not  depend  entirely 
upon  strength  and  victory  in  battle.  Many  male 
mammals  have  crests  and  tufts  of  hair,  and  other  marks 
of  beauty,  such  as  bright  colouring,  are  often  conspic- 
uous. These  are  used  to  attract  the  females.  The 
incense  of  odoriferous  glands,  which  become  specially 
functional  during  the  breeding  season,  are  another  fre- 
quent means  of  sexual  attraction.2  Even  many  of  the 
amatory  duels  are  not  really  fights  between  rivals.  They 
are  rather  parades,  or  tournaments,  used  by  the  males  as 
a  means  of  displaying  their  beauty  and  valour  to  the 
females.  This  is  frequent  among  the  contests  of  birds, 
as,  for  instance,  the  grouse  of  Florida  (Tetras  cuspido), 

1  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  12. 
*  Evolution  of  Sex,  pp.  7-8. 


AMONG  THE  BIRDS   AND  MAMMALS     91 

which  are  said  to  assemble  at  night  to  fight  until  morning 
with  measured  grace,  and  then  to  separate,  having  first 
exchanged  formal  courtesies.1 

It  is  among  birds  that  the  notes  of  joy  in  love  break 
out  with  a  wonderful  fascination.  They  are  the  most 
perfect  of  lovers;  strength  is  often  quite  set  aside,  and 
the  eye  and  ear  of  the  mate  alone  is  appealed  to.  The 
males  (and  also,  in  some  cases,  the  females)  use  many 
aesthetic  appeals  to  stimulate  passion,  such  as  dancing, 
beauty  of  plumage,  and  the  art  of  showing  it,  as  well 
as  sweetness  of  song  and  diverse  love-calls.  There  are 
numerous  examples  of  affectionate  partnerships  between 
the  sexes,  in  some  cases  lasting  for  life.  The  female 
Illinois  parrot,  for  instance,  rarely  survives  the  death  of 
her  mate.  Similarly  the  death  of  either  sex  of  the 
-panurus  is  said  to  be  fatal  to  its  companion.  The  affec- 
tion of  these  birds  is  strong;  they  always  perch  side  by 
side,  and  when  they  fall  asleep  one  of  them,  usually  the 
male,  covers  the  other  with  its  wing.  The  couples  of 
the  golden  woodpeckers  and  doves  live  in  perfect  unison. 
Brehm  records  the  case  of  a  male  woodpecker  who,  after 
the  death  of  his  mate,  tapped  day  and  night  with  his 
beak  to  recall  the  absent  one,  and  when  at  last  dis- 
couraged, he  became  silent  and  never  recovered  his 
gaiety.3  According  to  some  estimates  monogamy  pre- 
vails among  ninety  per  cent,  of  birds.8  This  is  explained 
by  the  steady  co-operation  of  both  sexes  in  forming  the 
home  and  caring  for  the  young,  for  it  is  surely  the  work- 
ing together  which  causes  their  love  to  outlast  the  excite- 

1  Epinas,  Soc.  Animates,  p.  326;  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  p.  433. 
•  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  27. 
3  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  422. 


92  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

ment  of  the  procreative  season.  Sometimes  we  find  this 
affection  flowing  out  into  a  wider  altruism,  extending 
beyond  the  family  to  the  social  group;  which  again  is 
surely  at  once  the  condition  and  result  of  these  beautiful 
and  practical  love-partnerships. 

Those  who  have  read  the  absorbing  pages  of  Darwin 
devoted  to  the  consideration  of  the  sexual  characters  of 
birds,  or  know  the  examples  given  by  Biichner,  Audubon, 
Epinas,  Wallace  and  other  naturalists,  or,  better  still, 
those  who  have  watched  and  noted  for  themselves  the 
love-habits  of  birds,  will  find  it  impossible  to  withhold 
admiration  for  the  poetic  character  of  many  of  these 
courtships  and  marriages,  which  put  too  often  our  own 
human  matings  to  utter  shame. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  love-dances.  Dancing  as  a 
means  of  attracting  the  right  pitch  of  passion  in  the  male 
and  the  female  has  always  been  used  in  the  service  of 
the  sexual  instinct.  It  gives  the  highest  and  most  com- 
plex expression  of  movement,  and  may  be  said  to  have 
been  evolved  by  love  from  the  more  brutal  courtships  of 
battle  display.1  The  characteristic  features  of  the 
amatory  dances  of  birds  are  well  known;  they  may  be 
witnessed  frequently  during  the  pairing  season.  The 
male  blackbird,  for  instance,  is  full  of  action  as  he  woos 
his  mate ;  he  flirts  his  tail,  spreads  his  glossy  wings,  hops 
and  turns ;  chases  the  hen,  and  all  the  time  chuckles  with 
delight.  Similar  antics  are  performed  by  the  whitethroat. 
The  male  redwing,  again,  struts  about  before  his  female, 
sweeping  the  ground  with  his  tail,  and  acting  the  dandy.2 

1  One  of  the  most  charming  accounts  of  the  loves  of  birds  is  given 
in  a  chapter  on  "  Music  and  Dancing  in  Nature,"  in  a  volume  entitled, 
The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata,  by  W.  H.  Hudson. 

1  Audubon,  Scenes  de  la  Nature,  Vol.  I.  p.  350. 


AMONG  THE   BIRDS   AND   MAMMALS      93 

The  crested  duck  raises  his  head  gracefully,  straightens 
his  silky  aigrette,  struts  and  bows  to  his  female,  while 
his  throat  swells  and  he  utters  a  sort  of  guttural  note.1 
The  common  shield  duck,  geese,  wood-pigeons,  carrion- 
vultures,  and  many  other  birds  have  been  observed  to 
dance,  spread  their  tails,  chase  one  another,  and  perform 
many  strange  courting  parades.  A  careful  observer  of 
birds,  Mr.  E.  Selous,  who  is  quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis,2 
has  found  that  all  bird  dances  are  not  nuptial,  but  that 
some  birds — the  stone-curlew  (or  great  plover),  for 
example — have  different  kinds  of  dancing.  The  nuptial 
dances  are  taken  part  in  by  both  the  male  and  female, 
and  are  immediately  followed  by  conjugation;  but  there 
are  as  well  other  dances  or  antics  of  a  non-sexual  char- 
acter, which  may  be  regarded  as  social,  and  these  too 
are  indulged  in  by  both  sexes. 

The  love-fights  of  swallows,  linnets  and  kingfishers, 
and  the  curious  aerial  evolution  of  the  swift  are  similar 
manifestations  of  vigour  and  delight  in  movement 3  as  a 
sexual  excitant  to  pairing.  Some  male  doves  have  a 
remarkable  habit  of  driving  the  hen  for  a  few  days  before 
she  lays  the  eggs.  On  these  occasions  his  whole  time  is 
spent  in  keeping  her  on  the  move,  and  he  never  allows 
her  to  settle  or  rest  for  a  minute  except  on  the  nest.4 

1  Audubon,  Scenes  de  la  Nature,  Vol.  II.  p.  50. 

>;   Have 


1  E.  Selous,  Bird  Watching,  pp.  15-20;   Havelock   Ellis,  Psychology 

Sex,  Vol.  III.  p.  25. 

3  The  jay  is  the  only  bird  I  know  whose  habits  in  this  respect  are 


of  Sex,  Vol.  III.  p.  25 
3  The  jay  is  the  01 
different.     Noisy   and   active   during   the   winter   the   male   becomes 


exceedingly  quiet  with  the  approach  of  the  pairing  season.  This  may 
possibly  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  two  sexes  of  these  beautiful 
birds  are  practically  alike;  thus  there  may  be  less  temptation  for  the 
male  to  show  off  as  the  handsomer  bird. 

•  J.  Lewis  Bonhote,  The  Birds  of  Britain,  p.  272.  It  is  from  this 
work  I  have  taken  many  facts  relating  to  birds.  See  also  A.  R.  Wallace, 
Darwinism,  p.  287. 


94,  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

This  last  case  affords  a  striking  illustration  of  the  real 
object  of  all  these  elaborate  movements.  The  male 
albatross,  an  ugly  and  dull-coloured  bird,1  during  court- 
ship stands  by  the  female  on  the  nest,  raises  his  wings, 
spreads  his  tail,  throws  up  his  head  with  the  bill  in  the 
air,  or  stretches  it  straight  out  or  forwards  as  far  as  he 
can,  and  then  utters  a  curious  cry.2  But  the  most  inter- 
esting example  that  I  have  been  able  to  find  recorded  of 
dancing  among  birds  is  the  habit  of  waltzing,  common  to 
the  male,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  to  the  female  ostrich. 
It  is  thus  described  by  S.  Cronwright  Schreiner.3 

"After  running  a  few  yards  they  (the  ostriches)  will  stop,  and 
with  raised  wings  spin  round  rapidly  for  some  time  until  quite 
giddy,  when  a  broken  leg  occasionally  occurs.  .  .  .  Vigorous 
cocks  '  roll  '  when  challenging  to  fight  or  when  wooing  a  hen. 
The  cock  will  suddenly  bump  down  on  his  knees  (ankle  joints), 
open  his  wings,  and  then  swing  them  alternately  backwards  and 
forwards  as  if  on  a  pivot.  At  such  a  time  the  bird  sees  very 
imperfectly,  if  at  all,  in  fact  he  seems  so  preoccupied  that  if 
pursued  one  may  often  approach  unnoticed.  Just  before  '  rolling, ' 
a  cock,  especially  if  courting  a  hen,  will  often  run  slowly  and 
daintily  on  the  points  of  his  toes,  with  neck  slightly  inflated, 
upright  and  erect,  the  tail  half  dropped  and  all  his  body  feathers 
fluffed  up;  the  wings  raised  and  expanded,  the  inside  edges  touch- 
ing the  sides  of  the  neck  for  nearly  the  whole  length,  and  the 
plumes  showing  separately  like  an  open  fan.  In  no  other  attitude 
is  the  splendid  beauty  of  his  plumage  displayed  to  such  advantage." 

In  this  case  it  is  very  suggestive  to  find  that  it  is  the 

1  Wallace  states  that  these  love-movements  are  more  commonly 
performed  by  birds  with  dull  plumage  who  have  no  special  beauties 
to  display  to  their  mates,  but  the  custom,  as  we  have  seen,  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  such  birds. 

8  Notes  of  a  Naturalist  on  the  "  Challenger,"  quoted  by  Wallace, 
Darwinism,  p.  287. 

»  "  The  Ostrich,"  Zoologist,  March  1897;  quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis, 
Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  III.  p.  34. 


AMONG   THE   BIRDS   AND   MAMMALS     95 

male  ostrich  who  takes  upon  himself  the  task  of  hatching 
and  rearing  the  young.  Perhaps  this  accounts  for  the 
female  ostrich  being  able  to  dance  as  well  as  the  male. 
There  are  very  few  examples  of  birds  who  are  bad 
fathers.  Often  the  male  rivals  the  female  in  love  for 
the  young ;  he  is  in  constant  attendance  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  nest;  he  guards,  feeds  and  sings  to  the  female,  and 
sometimes  shares  with  her  the  duty  of  incubation.  This 
is  done  by  the  male  wood-pigeon,  missel-thrush,  blue 
martin,  the  buzzard,  stone-curlew,  curlew,  dottrel,  the 
sandpiper,  common  gull,  black-coated  gull,  kittiwake, 
razorbill,  puffin,  storm-petrel,  the  great  blue  heron  and 
the  black  vulture.  Among  these  birds  it  is  usual  for  the 
family  duties  to  be  performed  quite  irrespective  of  sex, 
and  the  parent  who  is  free  takes  the  task  of  feeding  the 
one  who  is  occupied.  As  soon  as  one  family  is  reared 
many  birds  at  once  burden  themselves  with  another. 
Audubon  records  the  case  of  the  blue  bird  of  America, 
who  works  so  zealously  that  two  or  three  broods  are 
reared  at  the  same  time,  the  female  sitting  on  one  clutch, 
while  the  male  feeds  the  young  of  the  preceding  brood.1 
Next  in  importance  to  dancing  and  movement  in  the 
aid  of  courtship  among  birds  is  their  use  of  song  and 
display  of  decorative  plumage.  With  them  it  would 
seem,  even  more  than  among  the  mammals  or  with  man, 
sexual  desire  raises  and  intensifies  all  the  faculties,  and 
lifts  the  individual  above  the  normal  level  of  life.  The 
act  of  singing  is  a  pleasurable  one,  an  expression  of 
superabundant  energy  and  joyous  excitement.  Thus 
love-songs,  serving  first  probably  as  a  call  of  recognition 

1  Audubon,  Seines  de  la  Nature,  Vol.  I.  p.  317. 


96  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

from  the  male  to  the  female,  came  to  be  used  as  a  means 
of  seduction.  Every  one  is  familiar  with  the  exquisite 
lyrical  tournaments  of  our  nightingales;  their  songs 
during  the  love  season  do  not  cease  by  day  or  by  night, 
so  that  one  wonders  when  sleep  can  be  taken;  but  as 
soon  as  the  young  are  hatched  the  music  ceases,  and 
harsh  croaks  are  the  only  sound  left.1  The  song  of  the 
skylark,  with  its  splendid  note  of  freedom,  is  more 
melodious  and  more  frequent  in  the  season  of  love's 
delirium.2  Another  bird,  the  male  of  the  weaver  bird, 
builds  an  abode  of  pleasure  for  himself,  wherein  he 
retires  to  sing  to  his  mate.3  A  very  beautiful  case  of  the 
use  of  these  love-calls  by  the  tyrant  bird  (Pitangus 
Bolivianus]  is  recorded  by  W.  H.  Hudson.4 

"Though  the  male  and  female  are  greatly  attached  they  do  not 
go  afield  to  hunt  in  company,  but  separate  to  meet  at  intervals 
during  the  day.  One  of  the  couple  (say  the  female)  returns  to 
the  trees  where  they  are  accustomed  to  meet,  and  after  a  time 
becoming  impatient  or  anxious  at  the  delay  of  her  consort,  utters  a 
very  long,  clear  call-note.  He  is  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away, 
watching  for  a  frog  beside  a  pool,  or  beating  over  a  thistle  bed, 
but  he  hears  the  note  and  presently  responds  with  one  of  equal 
power.  Then,  perhaps,  for  half-an-hour,  at  intervals  of  half-a- 
minute,  the  birds  answer  each  other,  though  the  powerful  call  of 
the  one  must  interfere  with  his  hunting.  At  length  he  returns  : 
then  the  two  birds,  perched  close  together,  with  their  yellow 
bosoms  almost  touching,  crests  elevated,  and  beating  the  branch 
with  their  wings  scream  their  loudest  notes  in  concert — a  confused, 
jubilant  noise  that  rings  through  the  whole  plantation.  Their  joy 
at  meeting  is  patent,  and  their  action  corresponds  to  the  warm 
embrace  of  a  loving  human  couple." 

1  J.  Lewis  Bonhote,  The  Birds  of  Britain,  p.  39. 
1  Audubon,  Scenes  de  la  Nature,  Vol.  I.  p.  383. 
8  Epinas,  SocieUs  Animates,  p.  299. 

4  Argentine  Ornithology,  Vol.  I.  p.  148;  quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis, 
Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  III.  p.  33. 


AMONG  THE   BIRDS   AND   MAMMALS     97 

Some  birds,  who  are  ill-endowed  from  a  musical  point 
of  view,  have  their  wing  feathers  or  tails  peculiarly 
developed  and  stiffened,  and  are  able  to  produce  with 
them  a  strange  snapping  or  cracking  sound.  Thus 
several  species  of  snipe  make  drumming  or  "bleating" 
noises — something  like  the  bleat  of  a  goat — with  their 
narrowed  tails  as  they  descend  in  flight.1  Magpies  have 
a  still  more  curious  method  of  call,  by  rapping  on  dry 
and  sonorous  branches,  which  they  use  not  only  to  attract 
the  female,  but  also  to  charm  her.  We  may  say  that 
these  birds  perform  instrumental  music.2 

The  exercise  of  vocal  power  among  birds  seems  to  be 
complementary  to  the  development  of  accessory  plumes 
and  ornaments.  All  our  finest  singing  birds  are  plainly 
coloured,  with  no  crests,  neck  or  tail  plumes  to  display. 
The  gorgeously  ornamented  birds  of  the  tropics  have 
no  song,  and  those  which  expend  much  energy  in  display 
of  plumage,  as  the  turkey  and  peacocks,  have  com- 
paratively an  insignificant  development  of  voice.3  The 
extraordinary  manner  in  which  birds  display  their 
plumage  at  the  time  of  courting  is  well  known.  Let  us 
take  one  example — the  courtship  of  the  Argus  pheasant. 
This  bird  is  noted  for  the  extreme  beauty  of  the  male's 
plumage.  Its  courtship  has  been  beautifully  observed 
by  H.  O.  Forbes—4 

"  It  is  the  habit  of  this  bird  to  make  a  large  circus,  some  ten 
or  twelve  feet  in  diameter,  in  the  forest,  which  it  clears  of  every 

1  Wallace,  Darwinism,  p.  284;  also  J.  Lewis  Bonhote,  The  Birds  of 
Britain,  p.  319. 

1  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  pp.  14-15. 

8  Wallace,  Darwinism,  p.  287. 

4  H.  O.  Forbes,  A  Naturalist's  Wanderings,  p.  131 ;  quoted  by  Have- 
lock  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  III.  pp.  33-34. 

H 


98  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

leaf  and  twig  and  branch,  till  the  ground  is  perfectly  swept  and 
garnished.  On  the  margin  of  this  circus  there  is  invariably  a 
projecting  branch  or  high  arched  rest,  at  a  few  feet  elevation  from 
the  ground  on  which  the  female  bird  takes  its  place,  while  in  the 
ring  the  male — the  male  bird  alone  possesses  great  decoration — 
shows  off  all  its  magnificence  for  the  gratification  and  pleasure 
of  his  consort,  and  to  exalt  himself  in  her  eyes." 

In  this  picture  we  have  all  the  characteristic  features 
of  the  display  of  personal  beauty  in  which  many  birds 
delight.  Any  one  may  see  such  performances  for  them- 
selves. The  male  chaffinch,  for  instance,  will  place  him- 
self in  front  of  the  female  that  she  may  admire  at  her 
ease  his  red  throat  and  blue  head;  the  bullfinch  swells 
out  his  breast  to  display  the  crimson  feathers,  twisting 
his  black  tail  from  side  to  side;  the  goldfinch  sways  his 
body,  and  quickly  turns  his  slightly  expanded  wings  first 
to  one  side,  then  to  the  other,  with  a  golden  flashing 
effect.1  Even  birds  of  less  ornamental  plumage  are 
accustomed  to  strut  and  show  themselves  off  before  the 
females.  Birds  often  assemble  in  large  numbers  to  com- 
pete in  beauty  before  pairing.  The  Tetras  cuspido  of 
Florida  and  the  little  grouse  of  Germany  and  Scan- 
dinavia do  this.  The  latter  have  daily  amorous  assem- 
blies, or  cours  d'amour,  of  great  length,  which  are 
renewed  every  year  in  the  month  of  May.2  It  seems 
certain  that  this  aesthetic  display  is  conscious  and  pre- 
meditated ;  for  while  most  pheasants  parade  before  their 
females,  two  of  the  species — the  Crossoptilon  auritum 
and  the  Phasianus  Wallichii — which  are  of  dull  colour, 

1  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  p.  438. 

*  Epinas,   Soc.   animates,   p.   326;    and    Letourneau,    Evolution    of 
Marriage,  p.  14. 


AMONG  THE   BIRDS   AND   MAMMALS     99 

refrain  from  doing  so,  being  apparently  conscious  of 
their  modest  livery.1 

Certain  birds  are  not  content  alone  with  the  display 
of  natural  ornament,  but  make  use  of  further  aesthetic 
appeal  in  the  construction  of  their  homes  in  a  truly 
beautiful  manner.  Some  species  of  humming-birds  are 
said  to  decorate  the  exterior  of  their  nests  in  great  taste 
with  lichens,  feathers,  etc.  The  bower-birds  of  Australia 
construct  bowers  on  the  ground,  ornamented  with  shell, 
feathers,  bones  and  leaves.  Both  sexes  take  part  in  the 
building  of  these  abodes  of  love,  which  are  used  for  the 
courting  parades.  But  an  even  more  delightful  example 
of  the  rare  sexual  delicacy  in  courtship  is  recorded  by 
M.  O.  Beccari  of  a  bird  of  Paradise  of  New  Guinea,  the 
Amblyornis  inornata.2 

"This  wonderful  and  beautiful  bird  constructs  a  little  conical 
hut  to  protect  his  amours,  and  in  front  of  this  he  arranges  a  lawn, 
carpeted  with  moss,  the  greenness  of  which  he  relieves  by  scatter- 
ing on  it  various  bright  coloured  objects,  such  as  berries,  grains, 
flowers,  pebbles  and  shells.  More  than  this,  when  the  flowers  are 
faded,  he  takes  great  care  to  replace  them,  so  that  the  eye  may 
be  always  agreeably  flattered.  These  curious  constructions  are 
solid,  lasting  for  several  years,  and  probably  serving  for  several 
birds." 

It  is,  I  think,  by  such  cases  as  these  that  we  may  come 
to  realise  the  extraordinary  power  of  sex-hunger.  It 
seems  to  me  that  many  of  us  are  still  walking  in  sleep; 
fear  holds  our  eyes  from  the  truth.  But  as  we  look  back 
to  the  complex  and  often  beautiful  manifestations  of 
love's  actions  among  our  animal  ancestors,  we  begin  to 

1  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  p.  438 ;  Letourneau,  op.  cit.,  p.  13. 
1  Annali  del  Mtiseo  civico  di  storia  naturale  di  Genova,  t.  IX.  fasc.  3-4, 
'877,  quoted  by  Letourneau,  whose  account  I  give;  op.  cit.,  p.  14. 

H  2 


100          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

perceive  that  unanalysable  something  called  "  beauty," 
which  is  the  glory  that  has  arisen  out  of  that  first  simple 
impelling  hunger,  which  drove  the  male  cell  and  the 
female  cell  to  unite.  This  is  how  I  see  things — Life 
knows  no  development  except  through  Love. 

II. — Further  Examples  of  Courtship,  Marriage,  and 
the  Family  among  Birds 

It  is  especially  upon  the  efflorescence  of  male  beauty 
among  birds  that  Darwin  founded  his  celebrated  theory 
of  sexual  selection.  The  motley  of  display  seems  end- 
less, beautiful  plumes,  elongated  feathery  tresses,  neck- 
ruffs,  breast-shields,  brightly-coloured  cowls  and  wattles 
occur  with  marvellous  richness  of  variety. 

Now,  can  we  accept  the  Darwinian  theory,  and  believe 
that  all  these  appendages  of  beauty,  as  well  as  the  sexual 
weapons,  powers  of  song  and  movement,  have  been 
developed  through  the  preference  of  the  females?  the 
stronger  and  more  ornamental  males  becoming  in  this 
way  the  parents  of  each  successive  generation.  Wallace, 
as  is  well  known,  opposed  Darwin's  view,  preferring  to 
regard  sexual  selection  as  a  manifestation  of  natural 
selection.  He  has  been  followed  by  other  naturalists, 
who  have  denied  this  creative  power  of  love,  being 
unable  to  credit  conscious  choice  by  the  females  of  the 
most  gifted  males.  The  controversy  on  the  question  has 
been  long  and  at  times  violent.  Yet,  it  would  seem,  as 
so  often  happens  in  all  disagreements,  that  the  difference 
in  opinion  is  more  apparent  than  founded  on  the  facts. 
There  is  really  no  difficulty  if  once  we  understand  the 


FURTHER  EXAMPLES   AMONG   BIRDS     101 

true  significance  of  courtship.  What  this  is  I  have  tried 
to  make  clear.  During  the  excitement  of  pairing  the 
male  birds  are  in  a  condition  of  the  most  perfect  develop- 
ment, and  possess  an  enormous  store  of  superabundant 
vitality;  this,  as  may  readily  be  understood,  may  well 
express  itself  in  brilliant  colours  and  superfluities  of 
ornamental  plumage,  as  also  in  song,  in  dancing,  in  love 
tournaments  and  in  battles.  The  fact  that  we  have  to 
remember  is  that  the  female  is  most  easily  won  by  the 
male,  who,  being  himself  most  charged  with  sex  desire 
— and  through  this  means  reaching  the  finest  develop- 
ment— is  able  to  create  a  corresponding  intoxication  in 
her,  and  thus,  by  producing  in  both  the  most  perfect 
condition,  favours  the  chances  of  reproduction.  There 
is  no  need  whatever  to  suppose  any  conscious  choice  or 
special  aesthetic  perception  on  the  part  of  the  females. 
Great  effects  are  everywhere  produced  in  Nature  by 
simple  causes.  The  female  responds  to  the  stimulus  of 
the  right  male  at  the  right  moment — that  is  really  the 
whole  matter.1 

In  these  instances  (brought  forward  in  the  previous 
section  of  this  chapter)  of  the  universal  hunger  of  sex, 
which  are  fairly  typical  and  are  as  complete  as  my  space 
will  allow,  certain  facts  have  become  clear.  In  the  first 
place  we  have  seen  something  of  the  strong  driving  of 
the  procreative  function,  which  is  the  guarantee  of  the 
continuation  and  development  of  life.  The  importance 

1  Havelock  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  III.  pp.  18-24,  has  discussed 
this  question  at  some  length.  The  brief  account  I  have  given  is  a 
summary  of  his  view.  I  take  this  opportunity  of  gratefully  acknow- 
ledging the  great  help  I  have  gained  from  the  illuminating  and  valuable 
works  of  Mr.  Ellis. 


102          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

of  the  result  to  be  gained  explains  the  diverse  and 
elaborate  phenomena  of  courtship.  The  higher  we 
ascend  in  the  animal  kingdom  the  stronger  does  the  sex- 
appetite  become  :  it  vibrates  in  the  nerve-centres,  giving 
rise  to  violent  emotions  which  intensify  all  the  physical 
and  psychic  activities.  Love  is  the  great  creative  force. 
It  awakens  impressions  and  desires  in  the  individual, 
giving  rise  to  what  may  be  called  "  experiments  in 
creative  self-expression,"  to  the  energy  of  which  we  owe 
the  varied  and  marvellous  phenomena  in  animal  life. 

A  further  cause  arising  from  the  development  of  love 
is  certainly  of  not  less  importance — it  is  the  beginning 
of  life  not  wholly  individualistic.  It  is  in  the  sexual  pas- 
sions we  must  seek  the  origins  of  all  social  growth.  This 
is  evident.  We  have  seen  that  sexual  union  induces 
durable  association  between  the  female  and  the  male 
for  the  object  of  rearing  the  young.  Here  already  we 
find  that  truth,  which  it  is  the  chief  purpose  of  this  book 
to  make  plain,  that  the  individual  exists  for  the  race. 
This  is  the  new  and  practical  morality  of  the  biological 
view,  which  regards  the  individual  as  primarily  the  host 
and  servant  of  the  seed  of  life.  And  this  is  really  of  the 
greatest  benefit  to  the  individual.  From  this  service 
to  the  future  arises  the  family  and  the  home.  The 
familial  instinct,  more  or  less  developed,  may  be  traced 
far  back  in  the  scale  of  life;  and  as  it  gains  in  strength 
it  extends  from  the  family  into  a  wider  social  love,  which 
in  some  species  results  in  the  forming  of  societies 
grouped  together  for  mutual  protection  and  co-operation 
in  communal  activities.  A  rough  outline  of  society  is 
thus  found  established  already  in  the  animal  kingdom. 


FURTHER   EXAMPLES   AMONG   BIRDS     103 

Just  as  there  were  many  different  forms  of  sexual 
associations  among  our  animal  ancestors,  so  we  may 
observe  the  two  chief  forms  of  human  societies,  the 
matriarchate  and  the  patriarchate — or  the  maternal  and 
paternal  family.  It  is  the  former  that  is  the  most  fre- 
quent. This  is  what  we  should  expect.  The  female,  the 
mother,  as  the  natural  centre  of  the  family,  the  male, 
her  servant,  in  the  procreative  act;  but  apart  from  this, 
we  find  him  most  frequently  following  personal  interests ; 
the  female's  love  for  the  young  is  stronger  and  more 
developed  than  his.  I  lay  stress  upon  this  fact,  for  it 
shows  how  strongly  planted  in  woman  is  the  maternal 
instinct.  I  doubt  if  any  woman  can  ever  find  true  expres- 
sion for  her  nature  apart  from  motherhood.  It  isj  in 
these  past  histories  of  life's  development  that  we  may 
find  the  key  for  its  purpose  and  meaning  to  us. 

There  is  another  point  of  special  importance  to  us  in 
estimating  the  true  place  of  woman  in  society.  This 
early  position  of  the  female  proves  conclusively  (as  we 
shall  see  more  clearly  later  when  we  come  to  study  the 
primitive  human  family)  the  importance  of  the  mother 
and  her  children  as  the  founders  of  society.  Woman, 
by  reason  of  her  more  intimate  connection  with  the 
children  and  the  home,  became  the  centre  of  the  social 
group,  while  the  males,  less  bound  by  domestic  ties,  were 
able  to  wander,  but  came  back  to  the  home,  driven  by 
their  sexual  needs  to  return  to  the  female.  But  without 
giving  more  time  here  to  this  question,  to  which  I  shall 
return  later,  there  is  a  further  consideration,  arising  from 
our  study  of  the  family  habits  among  the  birds  and 
mammals,  that  now  must  claim  our  attention.  Certain 


104          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

examples  I  have  come  across,  in  particular  among  birds, 
have  forced  into  my  mind  doubt  of  a  widely-accepted 
belief.  I  put  forward  my  opinion  with  great  diffidence; 
it  is  so  easy  to  interpret  facts  by  the  bias  of  one's  own 
wishes.  I  know  that  the  cases  I  have  found  and  studied 
are  probably  few  in  comparison  with  those  I  have  missed ; 
but  to  me  they  seem  of  such  importance,  by  the  light 
they  throw  on  the  whole  question  of  the  position  of  the 
sexes,  that  it  seems  necessary  to  bring  them  forward. 

We  must  go  back  to  the  position  we  left,  some  time 
back,  of  the  differences  between  the  secondary  sexual 
characters  of  the  male  and  the  female.  We  have  fol- 
lowed the  development  of  the  male,  under  the  action  of 
love's  selection,  from  his  first  insignificant  position  in 
the  reproductive  process;  we  have  seen  him  becoming 
larger  than  the  female,  strong,  jealous  and  masterful— 
in  fact,  a  kind  of  fighting  specialisation,  with  special 
weapons  of  defence  for  sex-battles.  This  is  the  general 
condition  among  mammals.  Among  birds  another  set 
of  secondary  character,  that  may  be  classed  as  beauty- 
tests,  are  more  frequent.  Now  two  questions  must  be 
answered.  Can  it  be  proved  that  all  these  acquired 
developments  of  strength  and  of  beauty  belong  exclu- 
sively to  the  males — that  they  must  be  regarded  as  proof 
of  the  greater  tendency  to  diversity  in  the  male,  which 
has  carried  him  further  in  the  evolution  process  than  the 
female  ?  Can  it  also  be  proved  that  such  highly-marked 
differentiation  between  the  sexes  is  in  all  cases  necessary 
to  reproduction — that  this  heightened  male  attractive- 
ness is  a  progressive  force  in  the  service  of  the  race? 
If  so,  examples  will  surely  point  in  the  direction  of 


FURTHER   EXAMPLES   AMONG   BIRDS     105 

finding  that  among  those  species  where  the  sexual  char- 
acters of  the  male,  whether  of  strength  or  of  beauty, 
are  most  different  from  the  female,  sexual  love  will  find 
its  most  perfect  expression;  and  further,  that  the  males 
in  such  case  will  be  the  most  highly  developed — the  best 
parents  and  the  most  social  in  their  habits.  The  whole 
question,  I  think  it  must  be  evident,  turns  upon  this 
being  proved. 

But  in  the  face  of  the  facts  before  us  this  is  just  what 
we  do  not  find.  Among  birds  (who  in  erotic  development 
far  excel  all  other  animals,  not,  indeed,  excepting  the 
human  species,  and  thus  must  be  accepted  as  affording 
the  most  perfect  examples  of  sexual  development)  we 
have  seen  that  the  cases  are  not  few  in  which  the  female 
equals,  or  even  exceeds  the  male  in  size  and  in  strength. 
This  is  so  with  the  curlew,  the  merlin,  the  dunlin,  the 
black-tailed  goodwit,  which  is  considerably  larger  than 
the  male,  and  the  osprey,  where  the  female  is  also  more 
spotted  on  the  breast :  these  examples  must  be  added  to 
those  I  have  already  given  (page  58). 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  beauty-test  of  brilliancy  of 
plumage,  we  may  observe  an  even  larger  number  of 
examples  of  almost  identical  likeness  between  the  sexes. 
Among  British  birds  alone  there  are  no  fewer  than  382 
species,  or  sub-species,1  in  which  the  female  closely 
resembles  the  male.  In  some  few  of  these  examples,  it 

1  These  facts  are  taken  from  Mr.  J.  Lewis  Bonhote's  British  Birds. 
I  may  add  that  in  many  species  where  the  sexes  are  alike  the  young 
are  quite  different  from  the  parents,  a  fact  which  seems  to  have  escaped 
the  notice  of  those  who  say  that  the  young  birds  resemble  the  female. 
A  very  curious  instance  is  furnished  by  the  greater  spotted  wood- 
pecker, where  the  sexes  are  similar,  but  the  female  lacks  the  red  crown 
of  the  male ;  and  yet  the  young  of  both  sexes  have  this  red  crown. 


106  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

is  true,  the  colours  of  the  female  are  slightly  duller,  and 
in  others  the  female  is  rather  smaller  than  the  male,  but 
the  difference  in  each  case  is  very  slight.  It  is  specially 
significant  to  note  that  this  similarity  of  plumage  occurs 
in  some  of  the  most  beautiful  of  our  birds,  as,  for 
instance,  the  kingfisher  and  the  jay,  where,  the  brilliant 
dresses  of  the  sexes  are  practically  alike;  the  female 
robin  shares  the  beauty  of  the  male;  in  all  the  families 
of  the  charming  tits  the  sexes  are  alike;  this  is  also  the 
case  with  the  roller-bird  with  its  gaily-coloured  plumage ; 
and  there  is  no  difference  between  the  white  elegance 
of  the  female  and  the  male  swan. 

In  the  presence  of  such  examples  it  seems  to  me 
impossible  to  refrain  from  thinking  that  there  is  a  mis- 
take somewhere,  and  that  less  importance  is  to  be 
attached  to  the  secondary  sexual  characters  of  the  male 
than  is  generally  imagined.  Grant  that  these  cases  are 
exceptional;  but  if  we  once  admit  that  among  many 
species — and  these  highly  developed  in  sex — the  female 
shows  no  evidence  of  retarded  development,  we  shall  be 
forced  also  to  break  once  for  all  with  many  beliefs  and 
trite  theories  which  have  inspired  on  this  subject  of  the 
sexual  differences  between  the  female  and  the  male 
so  much  dogmatic  statement  and  so  many  unproved 
assumptions. 

I  am  not  forgetting  the  gorgeous  plumage  of  some 
male  birds,  and  the  contrast  they  afford  with  the  plain 
females.  What  I  wish  to  show  is  that  such  adornments 
cannot  be  regarded  as  a  necessary  adjunct  to  the  male— 
an  expression,  in  fact,  of  the  male  constitution.  Nor  are 
they,  as  we  shall  find  later,  necessary,  or  even  beneficial 


FURTHER  EXAMPLES   AMONG  BIRDS     107 

in  the  highest  degree,  to  the  reproductive  process.1  1 
have  an  even  more  interesting  case  to  bring  forward, 
which  to  me  seems  to  point  very  conclusively  to  what  I 
am  trying  to  prove.  The  phalaropes,  both  the  grey  and 
red-necked  species,  have  a  peculiarity  unique  among 
British  birds,  although  shared  by  several  other  groups 
in  different  parts  of  the  world.2  Among  these  birds  the 
role  of  the  sexes  is  reversed.  The  duties  of  incubation 
and  rearing  the  young  are  conducted  entirely  by  the  male 
bird,  and  in  correlation  with  this  habit  the  female  does 
all  the  courting,  is  stronger  and  more  pugnacious  than 
the  male,  and  is  also  brighter  in  plumage.  In  colour 
they  are  a  pale  olive  very  thickly  spotted  and  streaked 
with  black.  The  male  is  the  psychical  mother,  the  female 
taking  no  notice  of  the  nest  after  laying  the  eggs.  Fre- 
quently at  the  beginning  of  the  breeding  season  she  is 
accompanied  by  more  than  one  male,  so  that  it  is  evident 
that  polyandry  is  practised.8 

Now,  if  such  an  example  of  the  reversal  of  the  sexes 
has  any  meaning  at  all,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  find  the 
conclusion  forced  upon  us  that  the  secondary  sexual 
characters  are  not  necessarily  different  in  the  male  and 
the  female,  but  depend  on  the  form  of  the  union  or 
marriage  and  the  conditions  of  the  family.  Professor 
Lester  Ward,  in  connection  with  his  Gynaeocratic  theory, 
fully  discusses  this  question.  His  conclusion  is  that  this 

1  This  seems  to  be   the  position  taken  by  Professor   Geddes  and 
J.  A.  Thomson  in  Evolution  of  Sex,  pp.  4-5. 

2  Several  examples  are  mentioned  by  Wallace,  Darwinism,  p.  281. 
He,  however,  brings  them  forward  in  quite  a  different  connection  to 
prove  his  theory  of  the  protective  duller  colours  of  the  female  birds. 

3  My  facts  of  the  phalaropes  are   taken  from  J.  Lewis   Bonhote's 
British  Birds,  pp.  314-315. 


108          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

superiority  of  the  males  in  strength  and  size  among 
mammals  and  in  beauty  of  plumage  (which  is  also  a 
symbol  of  force)  among  birds,  instead  of  indicating  an 
arrested  development  in  the  females  indicates  an  over- 
development in  the  males.  "  Male  efflorescence"  is  the 
apt  term  by  which  Professor  Ward  designates  it.  He 
says — 

"The  whole  phenomena  of  so-called  male  superiority  bears  a 
certain  stamp  of  spuriousness  and  sham.  It  is  to  natural  history 
what  chivalry  was  to  human  history ;  .  .  .  a  sort  of  make-believe, 
play,  or  sport  of  nature  of  an  airy  unsubstantial  character.  The 
male  side  of  nature  shot  up  and  blossomed  out  in  an  unnatural, 
fantastic  way,  cutting  loose  from  the  real  business  of  life,  and 
attracting  a  share  of  attention  wholly  disproportionate  to  its  real 
importance."  * 

This  may,  I  think,  be  regarded  as  a  picturesque  over- 
statement of  what  is  in  the  main  true.  Male  efflorescence 
has  drawn  upon  itself  an  excessive  importance,  through 
what  we  may  call  its  dramatic  insistence  upon  our  notice. 
It  is  plain,  too,  that  the  more  we  examine  the  question 
the  more  we  are  forced  to  the  one  conclusion.  It  is 
certainly  very  suggestive,  as  Professor  Ward  points  out, 
that  those  mammals  and  birds  in  which  the  process  of 
male  differentiation  has  gone  farthest,  such  as  lions, 
buffaloes,  stags  and  sheep  among  mammals,  and  pea- 
cocks, pheasants,  turkey-cocks  and  barn-door-cocks 
among  birds,  do  practically  nothing  for  their  families. 
Among  the  gallinacese  it  is  the  female  who  undertakes 
the  whole  burden  of  incubation,  and  feeding  and  caring 
for  the  young ;  during  this  time  the  male  is  running  after 
adventures,  in  some  cases  he  returns  when  his  offspring 

1  Pure  Sociology,  p.  331. 


FURTHER  EXAMPLES   AMONG   BIRDS     109 

are  old  enough  to  follow  him  and  form  a  docile  band 
under  his  government.1  The  conduct  of  the  male  turkey 
is  much  worse,  and  he  often  devours  the  eggs,  which 
have  to  be  hidden  by  the  mother,  while  later  the  offspring 
are  only  saved  from  his  attacks  by  large  numbers  of 
females  and  the  young  uniting  in  troops  led  by  the 
mothers.2  The  polygamous  families  of  monkeys  are 
always  subject  to  patriarchal  rule.  The  father  is  the 
tyrant  of  the  band — an  egoist.  Any  protection  he 
affords  to  the  family  is  in  his  own  interest,  frequently  he 
expels  the  young  males  as  soon  as  they  are  old  enough 
to  give  him  trouble,  the  daughters,  in  some  cases,  he 
adds  to  his  harem;  only  when  old  age  has  rendered  him 
powerless  are  the  tables  turned,  and  the  young,  for  so 
long  oppressed,  rebel  and  sometimes  assassinate  their 
tyrannous  father.  There  is  very  little  evidence  of 
paternal  affection  among  mammals.  Even  among 
monogamous  species,  where  the  male  keeps  with  the 
female,  he  does  so  more  as  chief  than  as  father.  At 
times  he  is  much  inclined  to  commit  infanticides  and  to 
destroy  the  offspring,  which,  by  absorbing  the  attention 
of  his  partner,  thwart  his  amours.  Thus  among  the  large 
felines  the  mother  is  obliged  to  hide  her  young  ones  from 
the  male  during  the  first  few  days  after  birth  to  prevent 
his  devouring  them.8 

1  Epinas,  Soc.  animates,  p.  422. 

*  Audubon,  Seines  de  la  Nature,  t.  Ier,  p.  29.  I  may  say,  that  at  the  time 
of  writing  this,  while  staying  in  the  country,  I  have  had  an  opportunity 
of  watching  these  bands  of  female  turkeys  with  their  young.  Their  fear 
at  the  approach  of  the  strutting  noisy  male  is  very  manifest.  On  such 
occasions  they  at  once  seek  shelter.  I  once  saw  them  fly  into  a  church. 
The  females  invariably  keep  together.  I  have  never  seen  a  single 
mother  with  her  young. 

3  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  chapter  on  the  "  Family  among 
Animals,"  pp.  29-34,  from  which  these  cases  are  taken. 


110          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

It  is  important  to  note  that  among  birds  the  fathers 
devoid  of  affection  generally  belong  to  the  less  intelli- 
gent species.  We  may,  therefore,  see  that  these  violent 
polygamous  amours  of  the  male,  which  result  in  the 
development  of  the  more  extravagant  of  the  second 
sexual  characters,  are  not  really  favourable  to  the 
development  of  the  species.  They  belong  to  a  lower 
grade  of  sexual  evolution.  And  a  further  proof,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  furnished  as  we  note  that,  in  spite  of  this 
tyranny,  the  females  show  considerable  affection  for  these 
tyrant  males — the  chimpanzee,  for  example,  proving 
this  by  zealously  plucking  the  lice  from  her  master's 
coat,  which  with  monkeys  is  a  mark  of  very  special  atten- 
tion.1 The  most  oppressed  females  are,  as  a  rule,  the 
most  faithful  wives.  Thus  the  females  of  the  guanaco 
lamas,  if  their  master  chances  to  be  wounded  or  killed, 
do  not  run  away;  they  hasten  to  his  side,  bleating  and 
offering  themselves  to  the  shots  of  the  hunter  in  order  to 
shield  him,  while,  in  sharp  contrast,  if  a  female  is  killed, 
the  male  makes  off  with  all  his  troop — he  thinks  only 
of  himself.2  Must  we  say,  then,  that  the  female  animal 
likes  servitude  ?  It  is,  of  course,  because  the  aggressive 
male,  being  the  one  to  arouse  her  sexual  passions,  enables 
her  to  fulfil  her  work  of  procreation.  This  may  be. 
But,  granting  this  explanation,  it  must  be  allowed  that 
love  under  such  conditions  evidences  a  deterioration,  not 

1  Epinas,  Soc.  animates,  p.  443.  In  this  connection  I  may  mention 
the  fact  that  in  Southern  Spain,  where  the  women  are  noted  for  their 
love  of  their  children,  I  have  often  seen  mothers  sitting  at  their  doors 
for  several  hours,  extracting  lice  from  the  heads  and  bodies  of  their 
children.  I  once  saw  a  beautiful  flamenco,  (Sevillian  gipsy)  performing 
this  task  for  her  lover. 

*  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  32. 


FURTHER   EXAMPLES   AMONG  BIRDS     111 

alone  in  the  size  and  strength  of  the  female,  but  in  mental 
capacity — love  at  a  much  lower  level  than  those  beautiful 
cases  in  which  the  sexes  are  more  alike,  equal  in  capacity, 
and  co-operate  together  in  the  race  work. 

Yet  in  justice  it  must  be  added  that  even  the  most 
polygamous  males  are  not  always  devoid  of  affection. 
I  once  saw  on  a  Derbyshire  high-road  a  cock  show 
evident  signs  of  sorrow  over  the  death  of  one  of  his 
wives,  who  had  been  killed  by  a  passing  motor.  He 
refused  to  leave  the  spot  where  her  body  lay,  and  walked 
round  and  round  it,  uttering  sharp  cries  of  grief.  Nor 
are  sexual  lapses  confined  to  the  males;  a  female  will 
take  advantage  of  a  moment  when  the  attention  of  the 
old  cocks  is  entirely  absorbed  by  the  anxiety  of  a  fight, 
to  run  off  with  a  young  male.1  Even  among  species 
noted  for  their  conjugal  fidelity  this  sometimes  happens. 
Female  pigeons,  for  example,  have  been  known  to  fall 
violently  in  love  with  strange  males,  and  this  is  especially 
common  if  the  legitimate  spouse  is  wounded  or  becomes 
weak.3  Darwin  records  a  very  curious  case  of  a  sudden 
passion  appearing  in  a  female  wild-duck,  who,  after 
breeding  with  her  own  mallard  for  a  couple  of  seasons, 
deserted  him  for  a  stranger — a  male  pintail. 

"It  was  evidently  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight,  for  she  swam 
about  the  newcomer  caressingly,  though  he  appeared  evidently 
alarmed  and  averse  to  her  overtures  of  affection.  From  that  hour 
she  forgot  her  old  partner.  Winter  passed  by,  and  the  next  spring 
the  pintail  seemed  to  have  become  a  convert  to  her  blandishments, 
for  they  nested  and  produced  seven  or  eight  young  ones."  s 

1  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  p.  399. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  234. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  455. 


112          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

I  am  tempted  to  wait  to  consider  the  immense  signifi- 
cance of  such  cases  as  these  in  the  analogy  they  bear  to 
our  own  sudden  preferences  in  love.  The  question  as 
to  the  moral  conduct  of  this  duck  opens  up  suggestions  of 
those  cases  of  exceptional  love-passions,  which  all  our 
existing  institutions,  laws  and  penalties  have  never  been 
able  to  crush.  The  desire  for  sexual  variety  is  the 
ultimate  cause  of  all  sexual  lapses  and  irrationalities. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  this  is  a  condition  peculiar  to 
mankind  and  the  result  of  civilisation.  If  this  were  so 
it  would  be  easier  to  deal  with ;  but  before  these  deeply- 
rooted  instincts  of  sexual  hunger  we  are  often  powerless. 
I  know  of  no  question  that  needs  to  be  faced  by  women 
more  than  this  one.  I  would  like  to  say  more  about  it. 
But  already  this  first  section  of  my  book  has  exceeded 
its  limits.  I  must,  therefore,  pass  on,  to  draw  attention 
to  the  fact,  clearly  proved  by  the  case  of  this  wild-duck's 
love,  as  well  as  by  many  other  examples,  that  it  is  the 
females,  who,  exercising  their  right  of  selection  much 
more  than  the  males,  introduce  individual  preference  into 
their  sexual  relationships.  The  difficulty  is  that  such 
preference,  of  profound  biological  importance,  is  often 
thwarted  among  civilised  people  by  considerations  of 
property  and  the  accepted  morality.  From  this  stand- 
point permanent  marriage  may  often  fail  to  do  justice  to 
the  sexual  needs  both  of  the  individual  and  the  wider 
needs  of  the  race.  Nature  has  no  care  for  sex-morals  as 
we  understand  them,  any  mode  of  sexual  union  is  equally 
right  so  long  as  it  serves  the  race-process.  But  men 
have  set  up  a  whole  host  of  prohibitions  and  conventions 
— the  "  thou  shalt  nots  "  of  society  and  religion.  Which 


FURTHER   EXAMPLES   AMONG  BIRDS     113 

are  we  to  follow?  Which  is  the  wheat  and  which  the 
tares,  that  must  be  garnered  or  sifted  from  our  loves? 

It  is  important  to  notice  that  among  mammals,  as 
among  men,  conjugal  fidelity  is  modified  by  the  con- 
ditions of  life.  An  animal  belonging  to  a  species  habit- 
ually monogamic  may  easily  change  under  the  pressure 
of  external  causes  and  adopt  polygamy,  and,  in  some 
cases,  polyandry.  The  shoveler  duck,  though  normally 
monogamic,  is  said  l  to  practise  polyandry  when  males 
are  in  excess;  two  males  being  in  constant  and  amicable 
attendance  on  the  female,  without  sign  of  jealousy. 
Wild-ducks,  again,  which  are  strictly  monogamous,  good 
parents,  and  very  highly  developed  in  social  qualities 
when  in  a  wild  state,  become  loosely  polygamous  and 
indifferent  to  their  offspring  under  domestication.  Civil- 
isation, in  this  case,  depraves  the  birds,  as  often  it  does 
men. 

But  enough  has  now  been  said.  We  shall  find  later 
how  far  the  facts  we  have  learnt  of  the  position  of  the 
female  and  the  sexual  relationship,  as  we  have  studied 
them  in  these  examples  from  the  animal  kingdom,  will 
apply  to  us  and  to  our  loves.  We  have  now  to  study 
marriage  and  the  family  as  it  exists  among  primitive 
peoples.  We  shall  find  a  close  resemblance  in  the  court- 
ship customs  and  the  sexual  and  familial  associations  to 
those  we  have  seen  to  be  practised  by  our  pre-human 
ancestors.  The  same  resemblance  will  persist  when, 
lastly,  we  come  to  investigate  the  same  institutions  among 
civilised  races,  up  to  our  own.  Indeed,  we  may  have  to 
admit  that,  in  some  directions,  love  is  not  even  yet  as 

1  J.  G.  Millais,  Natural  History  of  British  Ducks,  pp.  8,  13. 


114          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

finely  developed  with  us  humans  as  it  is  among  birds. 
It  is  in  the  loves  of  birds,  as  I  believe,  that  we  must  seek 
hints  to  that  evolution  in  fineness,  which  has  still  to  come 
in  our  love. 

One  thing  more.  It  refers  to  the  disputed  question  of 
the  differentiation  of  the  sexes  by  the  action  of  love's- 
selection.  It  is  a  truth  that  I  wish  as  strongly  as  I  am 
able  to  emphasise.  We  cannot  learn  to  know  love's 
selective  powers  by  enclosing  its  action  within  the  narrow 
circle  of  our  preconceived  ideas.  Instead  of  limiting  its 
power  we  should  extend  it  without  hindrance  of  any 
form — to  the  female  as  well  as  the  male ;  to  the  woman 
as  to  the  man.  We  should  regard  nothing  as  impossible, 
no  development  of  either  sex  too  great  to  be  accom- 
plished, knowing  that  all  progress  is  possible  to  love's 
power.  Exceptional  cases,  then,  irregularities,  it  may 
be,  in  sexual  expression  will  henceforth  no  longer  sur- 
prise us ;  they  will  find  their  place  in  the  infinite  order  of 
life.  Such  examples  may  come  to  be  regarded  as  filling 
in  the  chain ;  they  form  intermediate  stages  and  also  mark 
the  reappearance  of  earlier  manifestations  of  the  sexual 
hunger.  The  new  morality  of  love,  which  is  having  its 
birth  amongst  us  to-day,  will  be  deeper  and  wider  than 
the  old  morality,  because  it  will  be  founded  on  surer 
knowledge. 


PART  II 

HISTORICAL   SECTION 


I  2 


CONTENTS   OF    CHAPTER   VI 

THE    MOTHER-AGE    CIVILISATION 

I. — Progress  from  Lower  to  Higher  Forms  of  the 
Family  Relationship 

Primitive  human  love — The  same  domination  of  sex-needs  in  man  as 
among  the  animals — Different  conditions  of  expression — Acquisi- 
tion of  a  new  element — The  individuation  of  love— Sex  uninter- 
ruptedly interesting — The  human  need  for  sexual  variety — The  per- 
sonal end  of  passion — Primitive  sex-customs  and  forms  of  marriage 
— Superabundance  of  evidence — An  attempt  to  group  the  periods  to 
be  considered — An  early  period  in  which  man  developed  from  his 
ape-like  ancestors — Illustrations  from  primitive  savages — First 
formation  of  tribal  groups — Second  period — Mother-descent  and 
mother-rights — The  position  of  women — The  importance  of  this 
early  matriarchate — The  transitional  period  from  mother-right  to 
father-right — The  assertion  of  the  male  force  in  the  person  of  the 
woman's  brother — This  alien  position  of  the  husband  and  father — 
The  formation  of  the  patriarchal  family — The  change  a  gradual 
one  and  dependent  upon  property — Civilisation  started  with  the 
woman  as  the  dominant  partner — Traces  of  mother-descent  found 
in  all  parts  of  the  world — Evidence  of  folk-lore  as  legends — Examples 
of  mother-descent  in  the  early  history  of  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland — The  freedom  enjoyed  by  women — -Survival  of  mother- 
right  customs  among  the  ancient  Hebrews. 

II. — The  Matriarchal  Family  in  America 

Traces  of  mother-descent  frequent  in  the  American  continent — Mother- 
rule  still  in  force  in  some  districts — Morgan's  description  of  the 
system  among  the  Iroquois — The  customs  of  Iroquois  tribes — 
Communal  dwellings — The  authority  of  the  women — The  creeping 
in  of  changes  leading  to  father-right — The  system  of  government 
among  the  Wyandots — Further  examples  of  the  sexual  relation- 
ships— The  interesting  customs  of  the  Seri  tribe — The  probation 
of  the  bridegroom — His  service  to  the  bride's  family — Stringent 
character  of  the  conditions  imposed — The  freedom  granted  to  the 
bride — A  decisive  example  of  the  position  of  power  held  by  women — 
The  Pueblos — The  customs  of  these  tribes — Monogamic  marriage — 
The  happy  family  relationship — This  the  result  of  the  supremacy 
of  the  wife  in  the  home — Conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  these 
examples  of  mother-rights  among  the  Aboriginal  tribes  of  America — 
Women  the  dominant  force  in  this  stage  of  civilisation — Why  this 
early  power  of  women  has  been  denied — A  meeting  with  a  native 
Iroquois — He  testifies  to  the  high  status  and  power  of  the  Indian 
women. 

117 


118  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

III. — Further  Examples  of  the  Matriarchal  Family  in 
Australia,  India  and  other  Countries 

The  question  of  the  position  of  women  during  the  mother-age  a  disputed 
one — Bachofen  s  opinion — An  early  period  of  gynaeocracy — This 
view  not  accepted — Need  for  unprejudiced  opinion — Women  the 
first  owners  of  property — Their  power  dependent  on  this- — 
Further  examples  of  mother-right  customs — The  maternal  family 
in  Australia— -Communal  marriage — Mother-right  in  India — The 
influence  of  Brahmanism — Traces  of  the  maternal  family — Some 
interesting  marriage  customs  —  Polyandry  —  Examples  of  its 
practice— Great  polyandrous  centres — The  freedom  enjoyed  by 
women — The  causes  of  polyandry — Matriarchal  polyandry — The 
interesting  custom  of  the  Nayars — The  Malays  of  Sumatra — The 
ambel-anak  marriage — Letter  from  a  private  correspondent — It 

Sroves  the  high  status  of  women  under  the  early  customs  of  mother- 
escent — Traces  of  the  maternal  family  among  the  Arabs — The 
custom  of   beena  marriage — Position  of  women    in   the    Mariana 
Islands — Rebellion  of  the  husbands — Use  of  religious  symbolism — 
The  slave-wife — Her  consecration  to  the  Bossum  or  god  in  Guinea. 

IV. — The  Transition  to  Father-right 

The  position  of  women  in  Burma — The  code  of  Manu — Women's  activity 
in  trade — Conditions  of  free-divorce — Traces  of  mother-descent  in 
Japan — In  China — In  Madagascar — The  power  of  royal  princesses — 
Tyrannical  authority  of  the  princesses  of  Loango — In  Africa  descent 
through  women  the  rule — Illustrations — The  transition  to  father- 
right — The  power  passing  from  the  mother  into  the  hand  of  the 
maternal  uncle — Proofs  from  the  customs  of  the  African  tribes — 
The  rise  of  father-right — Reasons  which  led  to  the  change — Marriage 
by  capture  and  marriage  by  purchase — The  payment  of  a  bride- 
price — Marriage  with  a  slave-wife — The  conflict  between  the  old 
and  the  new  system — Illustration  by  the  curious  marriage  customs 
of  the  Hassanyeh  Arabs  of  the  White  Nile — Father-right  dependent 
on  economic  considerations — R6sum6 — General  conclusions  to  be 
drawn  from  the  mother-age — Its  relation  to  the  present  revolt  of 
women — The  bright  side  of  father-right. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE    MOTHER-AGE    CIVILISATION 

I. — Progress  from  Lower  to  Higher  Forms  of  the 
Family  Relationship 

"  The  reader  who  grasps  that  a  thousand  years  is  but  a  small  period 
in  the  evolution  of  man,  and  yet  realises  how  diverse  were  morality 
and  customs  in  matters  of  sex  in  the  period  which  this  essay  treats  of  " 
(»'.  e.  Mother- Age  Civilisation),  "will  hardly  approach  modern  social 
problems  with  the  notion  that  there  is  a  rigid  and  unchangeable  code 
of  right  and  wrong.  He  will  mark,  in  the  first  place,  a  continuous  flux 
in  all  social  institutions  and  moral  standards ;  but  in  the  next  place,  if 
he  be  a  real  historical  student,  he  will  appreciate  the  slowness  of  this 
steady  secular  change ;  he  will  perceive  how  almost  insensible  it  is  in 
the  lifetime  of  individuals,  and  although  he  may  work  for  social 
reforms,  he  will  refrain  from  constructing  social  Utopias." — Professor 
KARL  PEARSON. 

OUR  study  of  the  sexual  associations  among  animals 
has  brought  us  to  understand  how  large  a  part  the  grati- 
fication of  the  sex-instincts  plays  in  animal  life,  equalling 
and,  indeed,  overmastering  and  directing  the  hunger 
instinct  for  food.  If  we  now  turn  to  man  we  find  the 
same  domination  of  sex-needs,  but  under  different  con- 
ditions of  expression.1  Man  not  only  loves,  but  he 
knows  that  he  loves;  a  new  factor  is  added,  and  sex 
itself  is  lifted  to  a  plane  of  clear  self-consciousness. 

1  It  is  abundantly  evident  to  any  one  who  looks  carefully  into  the 
past  that  sex  occupied  a  large  share  of  the  consciousness  of  primitive 
races.  The  elaborate  courtship  rites  and  sex  festivals  alone  give  proof 
of  this.  It  is,  unfortunately,  impossible  for  me  to  follow  this  question 
and  give  examples.  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  H.  Ellis's  Psychology 
of  Sex,  Vol.  IIL  pp.  34-44,  where  a  number  of  typical  cases  are  given 
of  the  courtship  customs  of  the  primitive  peoples.  See  also  Thomas, 
Sex  and  Society,  chapter  on  "  The  Psychology  of  Exogamy,"  pp.  175-179. 

119 


120          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

Pathways  are  opened  up  to  great  heights,  but  also  to 
great  depths. 

We  must  not,  therefore,  expect  to  take  up  our  study 
of  primitive  human  sexual  and  familial  associations  at 
the  point  where  those  of  the  mammals  and  birds  leave 
off.1  We  have  with  man  to  some  extent  to  begin  again, 
so  that  it  may  appear,  on  a  superficial  view,  that  the  first 
steps  now  taken  in  love's  evolution  were  in  a  backward 
direction.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  increased  powers  of 
recollection  and  heightened  complexity  of  nervous  organ- 
isation among  men,  led  to  different  habits  and  social 
customs,  separating  man  radically  in  his  love  from  the 
animals.  Man's  instincts  are  very  vague  when  com- 
pared, for  instance,  with  the  beautiful  love-habits  of 
birds;  he  is  necessarily  guided  by  conflicting  forces, 
inborn  and  acquired.  Thus  precisely  by  means  of  his 
added  qualities  he  took  a  new  and  personal,  rather  than 
an  instinctive,  interest  in  sex ;  and  this  after  a  time,  even 
if  not  at  first,  aroused  a  state  of  consciousness  in  love 
which  made  sex  uninterruptedly  interesting  in  contrast 
with  the  fixed  pairing  season  among  animals.  Hence 

1  This  is  the  mistake  that  Westermark — in  his  valuable  History  of 
Human  Marriage — as  well  as  many  writers  have  fallen  into;  assuming 
that  because  monogamy  is  found  among  man's  nearest  ancestors,  the 
anthropoid  apes,  primitive  human  groups  must  have  had  a  tendency 
towards  monogamy.  Whereas  the  exact  opposite  of  this  is  true. 
There  is,  it  would  seem,  a  deeply  rooted  dislike  in  studying  sex  matters 
to  face  truth.  This  habit  of  fear  explains  the  many  elaborate  efforts 
undertaken  to  establish  the  theory  that  primitive  races  practised  a 
stricter  sexual  code  than  the  facts  prove.  Letourneau,  in  The  Evolution 
of  Marriage,  appears  to  adopt  this  view,  and  forces  evidence  in  trying 
to  prove  the  non-existence  of  a  widespread  early  period  of  promiscuity 
(pp.  37-44).  Mention  may  be  made,  on  the  other  side,  of  I  wan  Bloch, 
who,  writing  from  a  different  standpoint  and  much  deeper  psychology, 
has  no  doubt  at  all  of  the  early  existence  of,  and  even  the  continued 
tendency  towards,  promiscuity. — The  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Times,  pp. 
188-195. 


PROGRESS   OF   FAMILY   RELATIONSHIP     121 

arose  also  a  human  and  different  need  for  sexual  variety, 
much  stronger  than  can  ever  have  been  experienced  by 
the  animals,  which  resulted  in  a  constant  tendency  to- 
wards sexual  licence,  of  a  more  or  less  pronounced  pro- 
miscuity, in  group  marriage  and  other  forms  of  sexual 
association  which  developed  from  it. 

This  is  so  essential  to  our  understanding  of  human 
love,  that  I  wish  I  could  follow  it  further.  All  the 
elaborate  phenomena  of  sex  in  the  animal  kingdom  have 
for  their  end  the  reproduction  of  the  species.  But  in  the 
case  of  man  there  is  another  purpose,  often  transcending 
this  end — the  independent  significance  of  sex  emotion, 
both  on  the  physical  and  psychical  side,  to  the  individual. 
It  seems  to  me  that  women  have  special  need  to-day  to 
remember  this  personal  end  of  human  passion.  This  is 
not,  however,  the  place  to  enter  upon  this  question. 

I  have  now  to  attempt  to  trace  as  clearly  as  I  can  the 
history  of  primitive  human  love.  To  do  this  it  will  be 
necessary  to  refer  to  comparative  ethnography.1  We 
must  investigate  the  sex  customs,  forms  of  marriage  and 
the  family,  still  to  be  found  among  primitive  peoples, 
scattered  about  the  world.  These  early  forms  of  the 
sexual  relationship  were  once  of  much  wider  occurrence, 
and  they  have  left  unmistakable  traces  in  the  history  of 
many  races.  Further  evidence  is  furnished  by  folk 
stories  and  legends.  In  peasant  festivals  and  dances 
and  in  many  religious  ceremonies  we  may  find  survivals 
of  primitive  sex  customs.  They  may  be  traced  in  our 

*  Our  knowledge  of  the  habits  of  primitive  races  has  increased  greatly 
of  late  years.  The  classical  works  of  Bachofen,  Waitz,  Kulischer, 
Giraud-Teulon,  von  Hellwald,  Krauss,  Ploss-Bartels  and  other  ethno- 
logists, and  the  investigation  of  Morgan,  McLennan,  Muller,  and  many 
others,  have  opened  up  wide  sources  of  information. 


122          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

common  language,  especially  in  the  words  used  for  sex 
and  kin  relationships.  We  can  also  find  them  shadowed 
in  certain  of  our  marriage  rites  and  sex  habits  to-day. 
The  difficulty  does  not  rest  in  paucity  of  material,  but 
rather  in  its  superabundance — far  too  extensive  to  allow 
anything  like  adequate  treatment  within  the  space  of  a 
brief  and  necessarily  insufficient  chapter.  For  this 
reason  I  shall  limit  my  inquiry  almost  wholly  to  those 
cases  which  have  some  facts  to  tell  us  of  the  position 
occupied  by  women  in  the  primitive  family.  I  shall  try 
to  avoid  falling  into  the  error  of  a  one-sided  view.  Facts 
are  more  important  here  than  reflections,  and,  as  far  as 
possible,  I  shall  let  these  speak  for  themselves. 

In  order  to  group  these  facts  it  may  be  well  to  give 
first  a  rough  outline  of  the  periods  to  be  considered— 

i.  A  very  early  period,  during  which  man  developed 
from  his  ape-like  ancestors.  This  may  be  called  the 
pre-matriarchal  stage.  With  this  absolutely  primitive 
period  we  are  concerned  only  in  so  far  as  to  suggest  how 
a  second  more  social  period  developed  from  it.  The 
idea  of  descent  was  so  feeble  that  no  permanent  family 
groups  existed,  and  the  family  remains  in  the  primitive 
biological  relation  of  male,  female  and  offspring.  The 
Botocudos,  Fuegians,  West  Australians  and  Veddahs  of 
Ceylon  represent  this  primitive  stage,  more  or  less  com- 
pletely. They  have  apparently  not  reached  the  stage 
where  the  fact  of  kinship  expresses  itself  in  maternal 
social  organisation.1  A  yet  lower  level  may  be  seen 
among  certain  low  tribes  in  the  interior  of  Borneo — abso- 

1  Thomas,   Sex  and  Society,   p.  68,   and  Letourneau,   Evolution  of 
Marriage,  pp.  269-270,  320. 


PROGRESS   OF  FAMILY   RELATIONSHIP     128 

lutely  primitive  savages,  who  are  probably  the  remains 
of  the  negroid  peoples,  believed  to  be  the  first  inhabitants 
of  Malaya.  These  people  roam  the  forests  in  hordes, 
like  monkeys ;  the  males  carry  off  the  females  and  couple 
with  them  in  the  thickets.  The  families  pass  the  night 
under  the  trees,  and  the  children  are  suspended  from  the 
branches  in  a  sort  of  net.  As  soon  as  the  young  are 
capable  of  caring  for  themselves,  the  parents  turn  them 
adrift  as  the  animals  do.1 

It  was  doubtless  thus,  in  a  way  similar  to  the  great 
monkeys,  that  man  first  lived.  With  the  chimpanzee 
these  hordes  never  become  large,  for  the  male  leader  of 
the  tribe  will  not  endure  the  rivalry  of  the  young  males, 
and  drives  them  away.  But  man,  more  gregarious  in 
his  habits,  would  tend  to  form  larger  groups,  his  con- 
sciousness developing  slowly,  as  he  learnt  to  control  his 
brute  appetites  and  jealousy  of  rivals  by  that  impulse 
towards  companionship,  which,  rooted  in  the  sexual 
needs,  broadens  out  into  the  social  instincts. 

It  is  evident  that  the  change  from  these  scattered 
hordes  to  the  organised  tribal  groups  was  dependent 
upon  the  mothers  and  their  children.  The  women  would 
be  more  closely  bound  to  the  family  than  the  men.  The 
bond  between  mother  and  child,  with  its  long  dependence 
on  her  care,  made  woman  the  centre  of  the  family.  The 
mother  and  her  children,  and  her  children's  children,  and 
so  on  indefinitely  in  the  female  line,  constituted  the 
group.  Relationship  was  counted  alone  through  them, 
and,  at  a  later  stage,  inheritance  of  property  passed 
through  them.  And  in  this  way,  through  the  woman, 

1  Lubbock,  Origin  of  Civilisation,  p.  9. 


124          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

the  low  tribes  passed  into  socially  organised  societies. 
The  men,  on  the  other  hand,  not  yet  individualised  as 
husbands  and  fathers,  held  no  rights  or  position  in  the 
group  of  the  women  and  their  children. 

2..  This  leads  us  to  the  second  period  of  mother- 
descent  and  mother-rights.  It  is  this  phase  of  primitive 
society  that  we  have  to  investigate.  Its  interest  to  women 
is  evident.  Just  as  we  found  in  our  first  inquiry  that,  in 
the  beginnings  of  sexuality  the  female  was  of  more  im- 
portance than  the  male,  so  now  we  shall  find  society 
growing  up  around  woman.  It  is  a  period  whose  history 
may  well  give  pride  to  all  women.  Her  inventive  facul- 
ties, quickened  by  the  stress  of  child-bearing  and  child- 
rearing,  primitive  woman  built  up,  by  her  own  activities 
and  her  own  skill,  a  civilisation  which  owed  its  institu- 
tions and  mother-right  customs  to  her  constructive  genius, 
rather  than  to  the  destructive  qualities  which  belonged 
to  the  fighting  male. 

3.  But  again  we  find,  as  in  the  animal  kingdom,  that 
step  by  step  the  forceful  male  asserts  himself.  We  come 
to  a  third  transitional  period  in  which  the  male  relatives 
of  the  woman — usually  the  brother,  the  maternal  uncle- 
have  usurped  the  chief  power  in  the  group.  Inheritance 
still  passes  through  the  mother,  but  her  influence  is  grow- 
ing less.  The  right  to  dispose  of  women  and  the  pro- 
perty which  goes  with  them  is  now  used  by  the  male 
rulers  of  the  group.  The  sex  habits  have  changed; 
endogamous  unions,  or  kin  marriages  within  the  clan, 
have  given  place  to  exogamy,  where  marriage  only  takes 
place  between  members  of  different  groups.  But  at  first 
the  position  of  the  husband  and  father  is  little  changed; 


PROGRESS   OF  FAMILY   RELATIONSHIP     125 

he  marries  into  the  wife's  group  and  lives  with  her  family, 
where  he  has  no  property  rights  or  control  over  his  wife's 
children,  who  are  now  under  the  rule  of  the  uncle. 

4.  It  is  plain  that  this  condition  would  not  be  perma- 
nent. The  male  power  had  yet  to  advance  further;  the 
child  had  to  gain  a  father.  We  reach  the  patriarchal 
period,  in  which  descent  through  the  male  line  has  re- 
placed the  earlier  custom.  Woman's  power,  first  passing 
to  her  brother  or  other  male  relative,  has  been  transferred 
to  the  husband  and  father.  This  change  of  power  did 
not,  of  course,  take  place  at  once,  and  even  under  fully 
developed  father-right  systems  many  traces  of  the  old 
mother-rights  persist. 

What  it  is  necessary  to  fasten  deeply  in  our  minds  is 
this :  the  father  as  the  head  of  the  woman  and  her  chil- 
dren, the  ruler  of  the  house,  was  not  the  natural  order  of 
the  primitive  human  family.  Civilisation  started  with 
the  woman  being  dominant — the  home-maker,  the  owner 
of  her  children,  the  transmitter  of  property.  It  was — 
as  will  be  made  abundantly  clear  from  the  cases  we  shall 
examine — a  much  later  economic  question  which  led  to 
a  reversal  of  this  plan,  and  brought  the  rise  of  father- 
right,  with  the  father  as  the  dominant  partner;  while  the 
woman  sank  back  into  an  unnatural  and  secondary  posi- 
tion of  economic  dependence  upon  the  man  who  was  her 
owner — a  position  from  which  she  has  not  even  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  freeing  herself. 

The  maternal  system  of  descent  is  found  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  where  social  advance  stands  at  a  certain 
level.  This  fact,  added  to  the  widespread  traces  the 
custom  has  left  in  every  civilisation,  warrants  the  assump- 


126          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

tion  that  mother-right  in  all  cases  preceded  father-right, 
and  has  been,  indeed,  a  stage  of  social  growth  for  all 
branches  of  the  human  race.1 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  give  the  numerous  traces  of 

mother-descent  that  are  to  be  found  in  the  early  histories 

of  existing  civilised  nations,  for  to  do  this  would  entail 

the  writing  of  the  whole  chapter  on  this  subject.     For  the 

same  reason  I  must  reluctantly  pass  over  the  abundant 

evidence  of  mother-right  that  is  furnished  in  folk-lore, 

in  heroic  legends,  and  in  the  fairy  stories  of  our  children. 

These  stories  date  back  to  a  time  long  before  written 

history;  they  are  known  to  all  of  us,  and  belong  to  all 

countries  in  slightly  different  forms.     We  have  regarded 

them  as  fables;  they  are  really  survivals  of  customs  and 

practices  once  common  to  all  society.     Wherever  we  find 

a  king  ruling  as  the  son  of  a  queen,  because  he  is  the 

queen's  husband,  or  because  he  marries  a  princess,  we 

have  proof  of  mother-descent.      The  influence  of  the 

mother  over  her  son's  marriage,  the  winning  of  a  bride 

by  a  task  done  by  the  wooer,  the  brother-sister  marriage 

so  frequent  in  ancient  mythologies,  the  interference  of  a 

wise  woman,  and  the  many  stories  of  virgin-births — all 

are  survivals  of  mother-right  customs.     Similar  evidence 

is  furnished  by  mother-goddesses,  so  often  converted  into 

Christian  local  saints.     I  wish  it  were  possible  to  follow 

this  subject,2  whose  interest  offers  rich  rewards.    Perhaps 

1  This  opinion  is  founded  on  the  anthropological  investigations 
during  the  past  half  century.  See  Hartland,  Primitive  Paternity,  Vol.  I. 
pp.  256-257;  H.  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  pp.  390-392,  and 
"  The  Changing  Status  of  Women,"  Westminster  Review,  October 
1886;  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  p.  58,  and  Bloch,  Sexual  History  of 
our  Times,  pp.  190-196. 

8  For  a  fuU  and  illuminative  treatment  of  this  subject  I  would  refer 
my  readers  to  the  essays  of  Professor  Karl  Pearson,  The  Chances  of 


nowhere  else  can  we  gain  so  clear  and  vivid  a  picture  as 
in  these  ancient  stories  and  legends  of  the  early  powerful 
position  of  woman  as  the  transmitter  of  inheritance  and 
guardian  of  property. 

It  may  interest  my  readers  to  know  that  mother-descent 
must  once  have  prevailed  in  Britain.  Among  the  Picts 
of  Scotland  kingship  was  transmitted  through  women. 
Bede  tells  us  that  down  to  his  own  time — the  early  part 
of  the  eighth  century — whenever  a  doubt  arose  as  to  the 
succession,  the  Picts  chose  their  king  from  the  female 
rather  than  from  the  male  line.1  Similar  traces  are 
found  in  England  :  Canute,  the  Dane,  when  acknow- 
ledged King  of  England,  married  Emma,  the  widow  of 
his  predecessor  Ethelred.  Ethelbald,  King  of  Kent, 
married  his  stepmother,  after  the  death  of  his  father 
Ethelbert;  and,  as  late  as  the  ninth  century,  Ethelbald, 
King  of  the  West  Saxons,  wedded  Judith,  the  widow  of 
his  father.  Such  marriages  are  intelligible  only  if  we 
suppose  that  the  queen  had  the  power  of  conferring  the 
kingdom  upon  her  consort,  which  could  only  happen 
where  matrilineal  descent  was,  or  had  been,  recognised.3 


Death,  Vol.  II. — "  Woman  as  Witch  :  Evidences  of  Mother-Right  in 
the  Customs  of  Mediaeval  Witchcraft  " ;  "  Ashiepattle,  or  Hans  Seeks 
his  Luck";  "  Kindred  Group  Marriage,"  Part  I.;  "The  Mother-Age 
Civilisation,"  Part  II. ;  "  General  Words  for  Sex  and  Kinship,"  Part  III. ; 
"  Special  Words  for  Sex  and  Relationship."  In  these  suggestive 
essays  Professor  Pearson  has  brought  together  a  great  number  of  facts 
which  give  a  new  and  charming  significance  to  the  early  position  of 
women.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  essay  is  that  of  "  Woman  as 
Witch,"  in  which  he  shows  that  the  beliefs  and  practices  connected 
with  mediaeval  witchcraft  were  really  perverted  rites,  survivals  of 
mother-age  customs. 

1  Bede,  II.  1-7. 

*  F.  Frazer,  Golden  Bough,  Pt.  I.  The  Magic  Art,  Vol.  II.  pp.  282- 
283.  Canute's  marriage  was  clearly  one  of  policy  :  Emma  was  much 
older  than  he  was,  she  was  then  living  in  Normandy,  and  it  is  doubtful 


128          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

In  Ireland  (where  mother-right  must  have  been  firmly 
established,  if  Strabo's  account  of  the  free  sexual  rela- 
tions of  the  people  1  is  accepted)  women  retained  a  very 
high  position  and  much  freedom,  both  before  and  after 
marriage,  to  a  late  period.  "  Every  woman,"  it  was  said, 
"  is  to  go  the  way  she  willeth  freely,"  and  after  marriage 
"she  enjoyed  a  better  position  and  greater  freedom  of 
divorce  than  was  afforded  either  by  the  Christian  Church 
or  English  common  law." 

Similar  survivals  of  mother-right  customs  among  the 
ancient  Hebrews  are  made  familiar  to  us  in  Bible  history. 
To  mention  a  few  examples  only  :  when  Abraham  sought 
a  wife  for  Isaac,  presents  were  taken  by  the  messenger  to 
induce  the  bride  to  leave  her  home;  and  these  presents 
were  given  to  her  mother  and  brothers.  Jacob  had  to  serve 
Laban  for  fourteen  years  before  he  was  permitted  to 
marry  Leah  and  Rachel,3  and  six  further  years  of  service 
were  given  for  his  cattle.  Afterwards  when  he  wished 
to  depart  with  his  children  and  his  wives,  Laban  made 
the  objection,  "these  daughters  are  my  daughters,  and 

if  the  Danish  king  had  ever  seen  her.  Such  marriages  with  the  widow 
of  a  king  were  common.  The  familiar  example  of  Hamlet's  uncle  is 
one,  who,  after  murdering  his  brother,  married  his  wife,  and  became 
king.  His  acceptance  by  the  people,  in  spite  of  his  crime,  is  explained 
if  it  was  the  old  Danish  custom  for  marriage  with  the  king's  widow 
to  carry  the  kingdom  with  it.  In  Hamlet's  position  as  avenger,  and 
his  curious  hesitancy,  we  have  really  an  indication  of  the  conflict 
between  the  old  and  new  ways  of  reckoning  descent. 

1  Strabo,  IV.  5,  4.     Hartland,  Primitive  Paternity,  Vol.  II.  p.  132. 
It  must  not  be  thought  that  mother-descent  was  always  accompanied 
by  promiscuity,  or  even  with  what  we  should  call  laxity  of  morals. 
We  shall  find  that  it  was  not.     But  the  early  custom  of  group  marriages 
was  frequent,  in  which  women  often  changed  their  mates  at  will,  and 
perhaps  retained  none  of  them  long.     We  shall  see  that  this  freedom, 
whatever  were  its  evils,  carried  with  it  many  privileges  for  women. 

2  H.    Ellis,    citing   Rhys    and   Brynmor- Jones,    The   Welsh  People, 
p.  214.  8  Gen.  xxiv.  5-53. 


PROGRESS   OF  FAMILY  RELATIONSHIP     129 

these  children  are  my  children."  x  Such  acts  point  to 
the  subordinate  position  held  by  Jacob,  which  is  clearly 
a  survival  of  the  servitude  required  from  the  bridegroom 
by  the  relatives  of  the  woman,  who  retain  control  over 
her  and  her  children,  and  even  over  the  property  of  the 
man,  as  was  usual  under  the  later  matriarchal  custom. 
The  injunction  in  Gen.  ii.  24,  "Therefore  shall  a  man 
leave  his  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his 
wife,"  refers  without  any  doubt  to  the  early  marriage 
under  mother-right,  when  the  husband  left  his  own 
kindred  and  went  to  live  with  his  wife  and  among  her 
people.  We  find  Samson  visiting  his  Philistine  wife, 
who  remained  with  her  kindred.2  Even  the  obligation 
to  blood  vengeance  rested  apparently  on  the  maternal 
kinsmen  (Judges  viii.  19).  The  Hebrew  father  did  not 
inherit  from  his  son,  nor  the  grandfather  from  the  grand- 
son,3 which  points  back  to  an  ancient  epoch  when  the 
children  did  not  belong  to  the  clan  of  the  father.4  Among 
the  Hebrews  individual  property  was  instituted  in  very 
early  times  (Gen.  xxiii.  13);  but  various  customs  show 
clearly  the  ancient  existence  of  communal  clans.  Thus 
the  inheritance,  especially  the  paternal  inheritance,  must 
remain  in  the  clan.  Marriage  in  the  tribe  is  obligatory 
for  daughters.  "  Let  them  marry  to  whom  they  think 
best ;  only  to  the  family  of  the  tribe  of  their  father  shall 
they  marry.  So  shall  not  the  inheritance  of  the  children 
of  Israel  remove  from  tribe  to  tribe." 5  We  have  here 
an  indication  of  the  close  relation  between  father-right 
and  property. 

1  Gen.  xxxi.  41,  43.  •  Judges  xv.  i.  *  Num.  xxxii.  8-n. 

'  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  326.      •  Num.  xxxvi.  4-8. 


130          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

Under  mother-descent  there  is  naturally  no  prohibition 
against  marriage  with  a  half-sister  upon  the  father's  side. 
This  explains  the  marriage  of  Abraham  with  Sara,  his 
half-sister  by  the  same  father.  When  reproached  for 
having  passed  his  wife  off  as  his  sister  to  the  King  of 
Egypt  and  to  Abimelech,  the  patriarch  replies  :  "  For 
indeed  she  is  my  sister ;  she  is  the  daughter  of  my  father, 
but  not  the  daughter  of  my  mother,  and  she  became  my 
wife."  *  In  the  same  way  Tamar  could  have  married  her 
half-brother  Amnon,  though  they  were  both  the  children 
of  David.2  The  father  of  Moses  and  Aaron  married  his 
father's  sister,  who  was  not  legally  his  relation.3  Nahor, 
the  brother  of  Abraham,  took  to  wife  his  fraternal  niece, 
the  daughter  of  his  brother.*  It  was  only  later  that 
paternal  kinship  became  recognised  among  the  Hebrews 
by  the  same  title  as  the  natural  kinship  through  the 
mother.5 

Other  examples  might  be  added.  All  these  survivals 
of  mother-descent  (and  they  may  be  discovered  in  the 
early  history  of  every  people)  have  their  value ;  they  are, 
however,  only  survivals,  and  their  interest  rests  mainly  in 
comparing  them  with  similar  facts  among  other  peoples 
among  whom  the  presence  of  mother-right  customs  is 
undisputed.  To  these  existing  examples  of  the  primi- 
tive family  clan  grouped  around  the  mother  we  will  now 
turn  our  attention. 

1  Gen.  xii.  *  2  Sam.  xiii.  16.  3  Exod.  vi.  20. 

4  Gen.  xi.  26-29.          6  See  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  63-64. 


THE  MATRIARCHAL  FAMILY  IN  AMERICA    131 


II. — The  Matriarchal  Family  in  America 

Traces  of  mother-descent  are  common  everywhere  in 
the  American  continent;  and  in  some  districts  mother- 
rule  is  still  in  force.  Morgan,  who  was  commissioned  by 
the  American  Government  to  report  on  the  customs  of 
the  aboriginal  inhabitants,  gives  a  description  of  the 
system  as  it  existed  among  the  Iroquois— 

"Each  household  was  made  up  on  the  principle  of  kin.  The 
married  women,  usually  sisters,  own  or  collateral,  were  of  the 
same  gens  or  clan,  the  symbol  or  totem  of  which  was  often  painted 
upon  the  house,  while  their  husbands  and  the  wives  of  their  sons 
belonged  to  several  other  gentes.  The  children  were  of  the  gens 
of  their  mother.  As  a  rule  the  sons  brought  home  their  wives, 
and  in  some  cases  the  husbands  of  the  daughters  were  admitted 
to  the  maternal  household.  Thus  each  household  was  composed 
of  persons  of  different  gentes,  but  the  predominating  number  in 
each  household  would  be  of  the  same  gens,  namely  that  of  the 
mother."  * 

There  are  many  interesting  customs  belonging  to  the 
Iroquois;  I  can  notice  a  few  only.  The  gens  was  ruled 
by  chiefs  of  two  grades,  distinguished  by  Morgan  as 
sachem  and  common  chiefs.  The  sachem  was  the 
official  head  of  the  gens.  The  actual  occupant  of  the 
office  was  elected  by  the  adult  members  of  the  gens, 
male  and  female,  the  own  brother  or  son  of  a  sister  being 
most  likely  to  be  preferred.2  The  wife  never  left  the 
parental  home,  because  she  was  considered  the  mistress, 
or,  at  least,  the  heiress ;  her  husband  lived  with  her.  In 

1  Morgan,  House  and  House-life  of  the  American  Aborigines,  p.  64. 
This  example  of  mother-descent  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  Indian 
life  in  all  parts  of  America  at  the  epoch  of  European  discovery. 

1  Morgan,   Anc.   Soc.,   62,    71,    76;    Hartland,    Primitive   Paternity, 
Vol.  I.  p.  298,  Vol.  II.  p.  65. 
K  2 


132          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

the  house  all  the  duties  and  the  honour  as  the  head  of 
the  household  fell  on  her.  She  was  required  in  case  of 
need  to  look  after  her  parents.  The  Iroquois  recognised 
no  right  in  the  father  to  the  custody  of  his  children ;  such 
power  was  in  the  hands  of  the  maternal  uncle.1  Marriages 
were  negotiated  by  the  uncles  or  the  mothers ;  sometimes 
the  father  was  consulted,  but  this  was  little  more  than 
a  compliment,  as  his  approbation  or  opposition  was 
usually  disregarded.2  The  suitor  was  required  to  make 
presents  to  the  bride's  family.  It  was  the  custom  for 
him  to  seek  private  interviews  at  night  with  his  betrothed. 
In  some  instances,  it  was  enough  if  he  went  and  sat  by 
her  side  in  her  cabin ;  if  she  permitted  this,  and  remained 
where  she  was,  it  was  taken  for  consent,  and  the  act  would 
suffice  for  marriage.  If  a  husband  and  wife  could  not 
agree,  they  parted,  or  two  pairs  would  exchange  husbands 
and  wives.  An  early  French  missionary  remonstrated 
with  a  couple  on  such  a  transaction,  and  was  told  :  "  My 
wife  and  I  could  not  agree.  My  neighbour  was  in  the 
same  case.  So  we  exchanged  wives,  and  all  four  are 
content.  What  can  be  more  reasonable  than  to  render 
one  another  mutually  happy,  when  it  costs  so  little  and 
does  nobody  any  harm  ?  " a  It  would  seem  that  these 
primitive  people  have  solved  some  difficulties  better  than 
we  ourselves  have ! 

1  McLennan,  Studies,  I.  p.  271.  Thus  among  the  Choctas,  if  a  boy  Is 
to  be  placed  at  school,  his  uncle,  instead  of  his  father,  takes  him  to 
the  mission  and  makes  arrangements. 

*  Report  of  an  Official  for  Indian  Affairs  on  two  of  the  Iroquoian 
tribes,  cited  by  Hartland,  op.  cil.,  Vol.  I.  p.  298.  McLennan  attributes 
the  arrangement  of  the  marriages  to  the  mothers  (Studies,  ii.  p.  339). 
This  would  be  the  earlier  custom  and  is  still  practised  among  several 
tribes. 

3  Charievoix,  V.  p.  418,  quoted  by  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II.  p.  66. 


THE  MATRIARCHAL  FAMILY  IN  AMERICA   133 

Among  the  Senecas,1  an  Iroquoian  tribe  with  a  less 
organised  social  life,  the  authority  remained  in  the  hands 
of  the  women.  These  people  led  a  communal  life, 
dwelling  in  long  houses,  which  accommodated  as  many 
as  twenty  families,  each  in  its  own  apartments.3 

"As  to  their  family  system,  it  is  probable  that  some  one  clan 
predominated  (in  the  houses),  the  women  taking  in  husbands, 
however,  from  the  other  clans,  and  sometimes  for  novelty,  some 
of  their  sons  bringing-  in  their  young  wives  until  they  felt  brave 
enough  to  leave  their  mothers.  Usually  the  female  portion  ruled 
the  house,  and  were  doubtless  clannish  enough  about  it.  The 
stores  were  in  common,  but  woe  to  the  luckless  husband  or  lover 
who  was  too  shiftless  to  do  his  share  of  the  providing.  No  matter 
how  many  children  or  whatever  goods  he  might  have  in  the  house, 
he  might  at  any  time  be  ordered  to  pack  up  his  blanket  and  budge, 
and  after  such  orders  it  would  not  be  healthful  for  him  to  attempt 
to  disobey ;  the  house  would  be  too  hot  for  him,  and,  unless  saved 
by  the  intercession  of  some  aunt  or  grandmother,  he  must  retreat 
to  his  own  clan,  or,  as  was  often  done,  go  and  start  a  new 
matrimonial  alliance  in  some  other.  The  women  were  the  great 
power  among  the  clans  as  everywhere  else.  They  did  not  hesitate, 
when  occasion  required,  to  'knock  off  the  horns,'  as  it  was  tech- 
nically called,  from  the  head  of  a  chief  and  send  him  back  to  the 
ranks  of  the  warrior.  The  original  nomination  of  the  chiefs  also 
always  rested  with  them." 

This  last  detail  is  very  interesting;  we  find  the 
woman's  authority  extending  even  over  warfare,  the 
special  province  of  men. 

1  The  customs  of  the  Senecas  have  been  noted  by  the  Rev.  A.  Wright, 
who  was  a  missionary  for  many  years  amongst  them,  and  was  familiar 
with  their  language  and  habits.     His  account  is  quoted  by  Morgan, 
House  and  House-life  of  the  American  Aborigines. 

2  We  seem  here  to  have  a  suggestion  of  the  modern  plan  of  co- 
operative dwelling-houses.     It  is  extraordinary  how  many  of  our  new  (!) 
ideas  seem  to  have  been  common  in  the  mother-age.     Was  it  because 
women,  who  are  certainly  more  practical  and  careful  of  detail  than 
men  are,  had  part  in  the  social  arrangements  ?     This  would  explain 
the  revival  of  the  same  ideas  to-day,  when  women  are  again  taking  up 
their  part  in  the  ordering  of  domestic  and  social  life. 


134          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

The  Wyandots,  another  Iroquoian  tribe,  camp  in  the 
form  of  a  horse-shoe,  every  clan  together  in  regular  order. 
Marriage  between  members  of  the  same  clan  is  for- 
bidden; the  children  belong  to  the  clan  of  the  mother. 
The  husbands  retain  all  their  rights  and  privileges  in 
their  own  gentes,  though  they  live  in  the  gentes  of  their 
wives.  After  marriage  the  pair  live  for  a  time,  at  least, 
with  the  wife's  mother,  but  afterwards  they  set  up  house- 
keeping for  themselves.1 

We  may  note  here  the  creeping  in  of  changes  which 
led  to  father-right.  This  is  illustrated  further  by  the 
Musquakies,  also  belonging  to  the  Algonquian  stock. 
Though  still  organised  in  clans,  descent  is  no  longer 
reckoned  through  the  mother.  The  bridegroom,  how- 
ever, serves  his  wife's  mother,  and  he  lives  with  her 
people.  This  does  not  make  him  of  her  clan ;  she  be- 
longs to  his,  till  his  death  or  divorce  separates  her  from 
him.  As  for  the  children,  the  minors  at  the  termination 
of  the  marriage  belong  to  the  mother's  clan,  but  those 
who  have  had  the  puberty  feast  are  counted  to  the 
father's  clan.8 

The  male  authority  is  chiefly  felt  in  periods  of  war. 
This  may  be  illustrated  by  the  Wyandots,  who  have  an 
elaborate  system  of  government.  In  each  gens  there  is 
a  small  council  composed  of  four  women,  called  yu-wai- 
yu-wd-na;  chosen  by  the  women  heads  of  the  household. 
These  women  councillors  select  a  chief  of  the  gens  from 
its  male  members,  that  is  from  their  brothers  and  sons. 

1  Powell,  Rep.  Bur.  Ethn.,  i,  p.  63. 

2  Owen,  Musquakies,  p.  72,  quoted  by  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II. 
pp.  68-69. 


THE  MATRIARCHAL  FAMILY  IN  AMERICA    135 

He  is  the  head  of  the  gentile  council.  The  council  of 
the  tribe  is  composed  of  the  aggregated  gentile  councils, 
and  is  thus  composed  of  four-fifths  of  women  and  one- 
fifth  of  men.  The  sachem  of  tribes,  or  tribal-chief  is 
chosen  by  chiefs  of  the  gentes.  All  civil  government  of 
the  gens  and  of  the  tribe  is  carried  on  by  these  councils, 
and  as  the  women  so  largely  outnumber  the  men,  who 
are  also — with  the  exception  of  the  tribal  chief  chosen 
by  them — it  is  surely  fair  to  assume  that  the  social 
government  of  the  gens  and  tribe  is  largely  directed  by 
them.  In  military  affairs,  however,  the  men  have  sole 
authority;  there  is  a  military  council  of  all  the  able- 
bodied  men  of  the  tribe,  with  a  military  chief  chosen  by 
the  council.1  This  seems  a  very  wise  adjustment  of  civic 
duties;  the  constructive  civil  work  directed  by  the 
women ;  the  destructive  work  of  war  in  the  hands  of  men. 
Some  interesting  marriage  customs  of  the  Seri,  on  the 
south-west  coast,  now  reduced  to  a  single  tribe,  are 
described  by  McGee.2  The  matriarchal  system  exists 
here  in  its  early  form,  it  is,  therefore,  an  instructive 
example  by  which  to  estimate  the  position  held  by  the 
women — 

"The  tribe  is  divided  into  exogamous  totem  clans.  Marriage  is 
arranged  exclusively  by  the  women.  The  elder  woman  of  the 
suitor's  family  carries  the  proposal  to  the  girl's  clan-mother.  If 
this  is  entertained,  the  question  of  the  marriage  is  discussed  at 
length  by  the  matrons  of  the  two  clans.  The  girl  herself  is  con- 
sulted ;  a  jacal  is  erected  for  her,  and  after  many  deliberations,  the 

1  I  have  summarised  the  account  of  the  Wyandot  government  as 
given  by  Hartland,  who  quotes  from  Powell's  "  Wyandot  Government," 
first  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  1879-1880, 
pp.  61  fif. 

*  "  The  Beginning  of  Marriage,"  American  Anthropologist,  Vol.  IX. 
p.  376.  Rep.  Bur.  Ethn.,  XVII.  p.  275. 


136          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

bridegroom  is  provisionally  received  into  his  wife's  clan  for  a  year, 
under  conditions  of  the  most  exacting  character.  He  is  expected 
to  prove  his  worthiness  of  a  permanent  relation  by  demonstrating 
his  ability  as  a  provider,  and  by  showing  himself  an  implacable 
foe  to  aliens.  He  is  compelled  to  support  all  the  female  relatives 
of  his  bride's  family  by  the  products  of  his  skill  and  industry  in 
hunting  and  fishing  for  one  year.  There  is  also  another  provision 
of  a  very  curious  nature.  The  lover  is  permitted  to  share  the 
jacal  and  sleeping  robe,  provided  for  the  prospective  matron  by  her 
kinswomen,  not  as  a  privileged  spouse,  but  merely  as  a  protective 
companion ;  and  throughout  this  probationary  term  he  is  compelled 
to  maintain  continence — he  must  display  the  most  indubitable 
proof  of  moral  force." 

This  is  the  more  extraordinary  if  we  compare  the  free- 
dom granted  to  the  bride.  "  During  this  period  the 
always  dignified  position  occupied  by  the  daughters  of 
the  house  culminates."  Among  other  privileges  she  is 
allowed  to  receive  "the  most  intimate  attentions  from 
the  clan-fellows  of  the  group."  "  She  is  the  receiver 
of  the  supplies  furnished  by  her  lover,  measuring  his 
competence  as  would-be  husband.  Through  his  energy 
she  is  enabled  to  dispense  largess  with  lavish  hand,  and 
thus  to  dignify  her  clan  and  honour  her  spouse  in  the 
most  effective  way  known  to  primitive  life;  and  at 
the  same  time  she  enjoys  the  immeasurable  moral 
stimulus  of  realising  she  is  the  arbiter  of  the  fate  of  a 
man  who  becomes  a  warrior  or  an  outcast  at  her  bidding, 
and  through  him  of  the  future  of  two  clans — she  is  raised 
to  a  responsibility  in  both  personal  and  tribal  affairs 
which,  albeit  temporary,  is  hardly  lower  than  that  of  the 
warrior  chief."  At  the  close  of  the  year,  if  all  goes  well, 
the  probation  ends  in  a  feast  provided  by  the  lover,  who 

1  This  is  supposed  by   McGee  to  suggest  a  survival  of  a  vestigial 
polyandry. 


THE  MATRIARCHAL  FAMILY  IN  AMERICA    137 

now  becomes  husband,  and  finally  enters  his  wife's  jacal 
as  "  consort-guest."  His  position  is  wholly  subordinate, 
and  without  any  authority  whatever,  either  over  his 
children  or  over  the  property.  In  his  mother's  hut  he 
has  rights,  which  seem  to  continue  after  his  marriage, 
but  in  his  wife's  hut  he  has  none. 

The  customs  of  the  Pueblo  peoples  of  the  south-west 
of  the  United  States  are  almost  equally  interesting. 
They  live  in  communal  dwellings,  and  are  divided  into 
exogamous  totem  clans.  Kinship  is  reckoned  through 
the  women,  and  the  husband  on  marriage  goes  to  live 
with  the  wife's  kin  and  becomes  an  inmate  of  her  family. 
If  the  house  is  not  large  enough,  additional  rooms  are 
built  adjoining  and  connected  with  those  already  occu- 
pied. Hence  a  family  with  many  daughters  increases, 
while  one  consisting  of  sons  dies  out.  The  women  are 
the  builders  of  the  houses,  the  men  supplying  the 
material.  The  marriage  customs  are  instructive.  As  is 
the  case  among  the  Seri,  the  lover  has  to  serve  his  wife's 
family,  but  the  conditions  are  much  less  exacting.  Un- 
like most  maternal  peoples,  these,  the  Zuni  Indians,  are 
monogamists.  Divorce  is,  however,  frequent,  and  a 
husband  and  wife  would  "  rather  separate  than  live  to- 
gether unharmoniously."  *  Their  domestic  life  "  might 
well  serve  as  an  example  for  the  civilised  world."  They 
do  not  have  large  families.  The  husband  and  wife  are 
deeply  attached  to  one  another  and  to  their  children. 
'  The  keynote  of  this  harmony  is  the  supremacy  of  the 
wife  in  the  home.  The  house,  with  all  that  is  in  it,  is 

1  Mrs.  Stevenson,  Rep.  Bur.  Ethn.,  XXIII.  pp.  290,  293.     Gushing, 
Zufii  Folk  Tales,  p.  368,  cited  by  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II.  pp.  73,  74. 


138          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

hers,  descending  to  her  through  her  mother  from  a  long 
line  of  ancestresses;  and  her  husband  is  merely  her 
permanent  guest.  The  children — at  least  the  female 
children — have  their  share  in  the  common  home;  the 
father  has  none."  Outside  the  house  the  husband  has 
some  property  in  the  fields,  though  probably  in  earlier 
times  he  had  no  possessory  rights.  "  Modern  influences 
have  reached  the  Zuni,  and  mother-right  seems  to  have 
begun  its  inevitable  decay." 

The  Hopis,  another  Pueblo  tribe,  are  more  conserva- 
tive, and  with  them  the  women  own  all  the  property, 
except  the  horses  and  donkeys,  which  belong  to  the  men. 
Like  the  Zunis,  the  Hopis  are  monogamists.  Sexual 
licence  is,  however,  often  permitted  to  a  woman  before 
marriage.  This  in  no  way  detracts  from  her  good 
repute ;  even  if  she  has  given  birth  to  a  child  "  she  will 
be  sure  to  marry  later  on,  unless  she  happens  to  be  shock- 
ingly ugly."  Nor  does  the  child  suffer,  for  among  these 
matriarchal  people  the  bastard  takes  an  equal  place  with 
the  child  born  in  wedlock.  The  bride  lives  for  the  first 
few  weeks  with  her  husband's  family,  during  which  time 
the  marriage  takes  place,  the  ceremony  being  performed 
by  the  bridegroom's  mother,  whose  family  also  provides 
the  bride  with  her  wedding  outfit.  The  couple  then 
return  to  the  home  of  the  wife's  parents,  where  they 
remain,  either  permanently,  or  for  some  years,  until  they 
can  obtain  a  separate  dwelling.  The  husband  is  always 
a  stranger,  and  is  so  treated  by  his  wife's  kin.  The 
dwelling  of  his  mother  remains  his  true  home,  in  sickness 
he  returns  to  her  to  be  nursed,  and  stays  with  her  until 
he  is  well  again.  Often  his  position  in  his  wife's  home 


THE  MATRIARCHAL  FAMILY  IN  AMERICA    139 

is  so  irksome  that  he  severs  his  relation  with  her  and 
her  family  and  returns  to  his  old  home.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  not  uncommon  for  the  wife,  should  her  hus- 
band be  absent,  to  place  his  goods  outside  the  door :  an 
intimation  which  he  well  understands,  and  does  not 
intrude  himself  upon  her  again.1 

Lastly,  among  the  Pueblo  peoples  we  may  consider 
the  Sai.  Like  the  other  tribes  they  are  divided  into 
exogamous  totem  clans;  descent  is  traced  only  through 
the  women.  The  tribe  through  various  reasons  has  been 
greatly  reduced  in  numbers,  and  whole  clans  have  died 
out,  and  under  these  circumstances  exogamy  has  ceased 
to  be  strictly  enforced.  This  has  led  to  other  changes. 
The  Sai  are  still  at  least  normally  monogamous.  When 
a  young  man  wishes  to  marry  a  girl  he  speaks  first  to 
her  parents;  if  they  are  willing,  he  addresses  himself  to 
her.  On  the  day  of  the  marriage  he  goes  alone  to  her 
home,  carrying  his  presents  wrapped  in  a  blanket,  his 
father  and  mother  having  preceded  him  thither.  When 
the  young  people  are  seated  together  the  parents  address 
them  in  turn  enjoining  unity  and  forbearance.  This 
constitutes  the  ceremony.  Tribal  custom  requires  the 
bridegroom  to  reside  with  the  wife's  family.2 

Now  I  submit  to  the  judgment  of  my  readers — what 
do  these  examples  of  mother-right  among  the  aboriginal 
tribes  of  America  show,  if  not  that,  speaking  broadly, 
women  were  the  dominant  force  in  this  early  stage  of 

1  Rep.  Bur.  Ethn.,  XIII.  p.  340.  Solberg,  Zeits.  /.  Ethnol..  XXXVII. 
p.  269.  Voth,  Traditions  of  the  Hopi,  pp.  67,  96,  133.  Hartland, 
op.  cit.,  Vol.  II.  pp.  74-76. 

1  Rep.  Bur.  Ethn.,  IX.  p.  19.  Hartland,  Ibid.,  pp.  76-77.  It  would 
seem  in  some  cases,  the  husband,  after  a  period  of  residence  with  his 
wife's  family,  provides  a  separate  house. 


140          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

civilisation?  In  some  instances,  it  is  true,  their  power 
was  shared,  or  even  taken  from  them,  by  their  brothers 
or  other  male  relatives.  This  I  believe  to  have  been  a 
later  development — a  first  step  in  the  assertion  of  male- 
force.  In  all  cases  the  alien  position  of  the  father,  with- 
out tribal  rights  in  his  wife's  clan  and  with  no  recognised 
authority  over  her  children,  is  evident.  If  this  is  denied, 
the  only  conclusion  that  suggests  itself  to  me  is,  that 
those  who  seek  to  diminish  the  importance  of  mother- 
rule  have  done  so  in  reinforcement  of  their  preconceived 
idea  of  male  superiority  as  the  natural  and  unchanging 
order  in  the  relationship  between  the  sexes.  I  have  no 
hesitation  as  the  result  of  very  considerable  study,  in 
believing  that  it  is  the  exact  opposite  of  this  that  is  true. 
The  mother,  and  not  the  father,  was  the  important 
partner  in  the  early  stages  of  civilisation;  father-right, 
the  form  we  find  in  our  sexual  relationships,  is  a  later 
reversal  of  this  natural  arrangement,  based,  not  upon 
kinship,  but  upon  property.  This  we  shall  see  more 
clearly  later. 

Thomas *  suggests  another  reason  for  the  general 
tendency  among  many  investigators  to  lessen  the  import- 
ance of  the  mother-age  civilisations.  He  thinks  it  due 
to  dislike  in  acknowledging  the  theory  of  promiscuity 
(notably  Westermark  in  his  History  of  Human  Marriage). 
This  view  would  seem  to  be  connected  with  the  mistaken 
opinion  that  womb-kinship  arose  through  the  uncertainty 
of  paternity.  But  this  was  not  the  sole  reason,  or  indeed 
the  chief  one,  of  descent  being  traced  through  the  mother. 
We  have  found  mother-rule  in  very  active  existence 

1  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  65-66. 


THE  MATRIARCHAL  FAMILY  IN  AMERICA    141 

among  the  Pueblo  peoples,  who  are  monogamists,  and 
where  the  paternity  of  the  child  must  be  known.  The 
modern  civilised  man  cannot  easily  accustom  himself  to 
the  idea  that  in  the  old  matriarchal  family  the  dominion 
of  the  mother  was  accepted  as  the  natural,  and,  there- 
fore, the  right  order  of  society.  It  is  very  difficult  for 
us  to  accept  a  relationship  of  the  sexes  that  is  so  exactly 
opposite  to  that  to  which  we  are  accustomed. 

After  I  had  written  the  foregoing  account  of  mother- 
rule  as  it  exists  in  the  continent  of  America,  I  had  the 
exceeding  good  fortune  to  attend  a  lecture  given  by  a 
native  Iroquois.  I  wish  it  were  possible  for  me  to  write 
here  those  things  that  I  heard;  but  I  could  not  do  this, 
I  know,  without  spoiling  it  all.  This  would  destroy  for 
me  what  is  a  very  beautiful  and  happy  memory.  For  to 
hear  of  a  people  who  live  gladly  and  without  any  of 
those  problems  that  are  rotting  away  our  civilisation 
brings  a  new  courage  to  those  of  us  who  sometimes  grow 
hopeless  at  this  needless  wastage  of  life. 

The  lecturer  told  us  much  of  the  high  status  and  power 
of  women  among  the  Iroquoian  tribes.  What  he  said, 
not  only  corroborated  all  I  have  written,  but  gave  a 
picture  of  mother-rule  and  mother-rights  far  more  com- 
plete than  anything  I  had  found  in  the  records  of 
investigators  and  travellers.  The  lecturer  was  a  cultured 
gentleman,  and  I  learnt  how  false  had  been  my  view 
that  the  race  to  which  he  belonged  was  uncivilised.  I 
learnt,  too,  that  the  Iroquoian  tribes  were  now  increasing 
in  numbers,  and  must  not  be  looked  upon  as  a  diminish- 
ing people.  They  have  kept,  against  terrible  difficulties, 
and  are  determined  to  keep,  their  own  civilisation  and 


142          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

customs,  knowing  these  to  be  better  for  them  than  those 
of  other  races.  The  lecturer  astonished  me  by  his 
familiarity  with,  and  understanding  of,  our  social 
problems.  He  spoke,  in  particular,  of  the  present  revo- 
lution among  women.  This,  in  his  opinion,  was  due 
wholly  to  the  unnatural  arrangement  of  our  family 
relationship,  with  the  father  at  the  head  instead  of  the 
mother.  There  seem  to  be  no  sex-problems,  no  difficul- 
ties in  marriage,  no  celibacy,  no  prostitution  among  the 
Iroquoians.  All  the  power  in  the  domestic  relationship 
is  in  the  hands  of  women.  I  questioned  the  lecturer  on 
this  point.  I  asked  him  if  the  women  did  not  at  times 
misuse  their  rights  of  authority,  and  if  men  did  not  rebel  ? 
He  seemed  surprised.  His  answer  was  :  "  Of  course  the 
men  follow  the  wishes  of  the  women ;  they  are  our 
mothers."  To  him  there  seemed  no  more  to  be  said. 


III. — Further  Examples  of  the  Matriarchal  Family 
in  Australia,  India,  and  other  countries 

It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  the  question  of  the  posi- 
tion of  women  during  the  mother-age  is  a  disputed  one. 
Bachofen  *  was  the  first  to  build  up  in  his  classical  works 
of  Matriarchy,  the  gynaecocratic  theory  which  places  the 
chief  social  power  under  the  system  of  mother-descent 
in  the  hands  of  women.  This  view  has  been  disputed, 

1  Bachofen's  work  was  foreshadowed  by  an  earlier  writer.  Father 
Lafiteau,  who  published  his  Mceurs  des  sauvages  americains  in  1721. 
Das  Mutterrecht  was  published  in  1861.  McLennan,  ignorant  of 
Bachofen's  work,  followed  immediately  after  with  his  account  of  the 
Indian  Hill  Tribes.  He  was  followed  by  Morgan,  with  his  knowledge 
of  Iroquois,  and  many  other  investigators. 


FURTHER   EXAMPLES  143 

especially  in  recent  years,  and  many  writers  who  acknow- 
ledge the  widespread  existence  of  maternal  descent  deny 
that  it  carries  with  it,  except  in  exceptional  cases,  mother- 
rights  of  special  advantage  to  women;  even  when  these 
seem  to  be  present  they  believe  such  rights  to  be  more 
apparent  than  real.1 

One  suspects  prejudice  here.  To  approach  this  ques- 
tion with  any  fairness  it  is  absolutely  essential  to  clear 
the  mind  from  our  current  theories  regarding  the  family. 
The  order  is  not  sacred  in  the  sense  that  it  has  always 
had  the  same  form.  It  is  this  belief  in  the  immutability 
of  our  form  of  the  sexual  relationship  which  accounts 
for  the  prejudice  with  which  this  question  is  so  often 
approached.  I  fully  admit  the  dark  side  of  the  mother- 
age  among  many  peoples ;  its  sexual  licence,  often  brutal 
in  practice,  its  cruelties  and  sacrifice  of  life.  But  these 
are  evils  common  to  barbarism,  and  are  found  existing 
under  father-right  quite  as  frequently  as  under  mother- 
right.  I  concede,  too,  that  mother-descent  was  not  neces- 
sarily or  universally  a  period  of  mother-rule.  It  was  not. 
But  that  it  did  in  many  cases — and  these  no  exceptional 
ones — carry  with  it  power  for  women,  as  the  transmitters 
of  inheritance  and  property  I  am  certain  that  the  known 
facts  prove.2  Nor  do  I  forget  that  cruel  treatment  of 
women  was  not  uncommon  in  matriarchal  societies.  I 
have  shown  how  in  many  tribes  the  power  rested  in  the 

1  Lord  Avebury,  for  example,  says  :  "  I  believe  that  communities  in 
which  women  have  exercised  supreme  power  were  quite  exceptional," 
Marriage,  Totemism  and  Religion,  p.  51.  See  also  Letourneau,  Evolution 
of  Marriage,  pp.  281-282. 

*  In  this  opinion  I  am  glad  to  have  the  support  of  so  high  an  authority 
as  Mr.  Havelock  Ellis.  See  his  admirable  summary  of  this  question, 
Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  pp.  390-393;  also  the  essay  already  referred 
to,  "  Changing  Status  of  Women,"  Westminster  Review,  Oct.  1886. 


144          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

woman's  brother  or  male  relations,  and  in  all  such  cases 
mother-descent  was  really  combined  with  a  patriarchal 
system,  the  earlier  authority  of  the  mother  persisting 
only  as  a  habit.  But  to  argue  from  the  cases  of  male 
cruelty  that  mother-descent  did  not  confer  special  advan- 
tages upon  women  is,  I  think,  as  absurd  as  it  would  be 
to  state  that  under  the  fully  developed  patriarchal  rule 
(as  also  in  our  society  to-day)  the  authority  was  not  in 
the  hands  of  men,  because  cases  are  not  infrequent  in 
which  women  ill-treat  their  husbands.  And,  indeed, 
when  we  consider  the  position  of  the  husband  and  father 
under  this  early  system,  without  rights  of  property  and 
with  no  authority  over  his  children,  and  subject  to  the 
rule  either  of  his  wife  or  of  her  relatives,  no  surprise  can 
be  felt  if  sometimes  he  resorted  to  cruelties,  asserting 
his  power  in  whatever  direction  opportunity  permitted. 
I  may  admit  that  for  a  long  time  I  found  it  difficult  to 
believe  in  this  mother-power.  The  finding  of  such 
authority  held  by  primitive  woman  is  strange,  indeed, 
to  women  to-day.  Reverse  the  sexes,  and  in  broad  state- 
ment the  conditions  of  the  mother-age  would  be  true  of 
our  present  domestic  and  social  relationship.  Little 
wonder,  then,  that  primitive  men  rebelled,  disliking  the 
inconveniences  arising  from  their  insecure  and  depend- 
ent position  as  perpetual  guests  in  their  wives'  homes. 
It  is  strange  how  history  repeats  itself. 

Women,  from  their  association  with  the  home,  were 
the  first  organisers  of  all  industrial  labour.  A  glance 
back  at  the  mother-age  civilisation  should  teach  men 
modesty.  They  will  see  that  woman  was  the  equal,  if 
not  superior,  to  man  in  productive  activity.  It  was  not 


FURTHER   EXAMPLES  145 

until  a  much  later  period  that  men  supplanted  women 
and  monopolised  the  work  they  had  started.     Through 
their  identification  with  the  early  industrial   processes 
women  were  the  first  property  owners;  they  were  almost 
the   sole  creators  of   ownership   in  land,   and  held  in 
respect  of  this  a  position  of  great  advantage.     In  the 
transactions  of  North  American  tribes  with  the  colonial 
government    many   deeds   of    assignment   bear   female 
signatures.1     A  form  of  divorce  used  by  a  husband  in 
ancient  Arabia  was  :  "  Begone,  for  I  will  no  longer  drive 
thy  flocks  to  pasture."  2    In  almost  all  cases  the  house- 
hold goods  belonged  to  the  woman.    The  stores  of  roots 
and   berries  laid  up   for  a  time  of   scarcity  were  the 
property  of  the  wife,  and  the  husband  would  not  touch 
them    without    her    permission.      In    many    cases    such 
property  was  very   extensive.     Among  the   Menomini 
Indians,  for  instance,  a  woman  of  good  circumstances 
would  own  as  many  as  from  1200  to   1500  birch-bark 
vessels.3    In  the  New  Mexican  pueblo  what  comes  from 
outside  the  house,  as  soon  as  it  is  inside  is  put  under  the 
immediate   control   of   the   women.      Bandelier,   in   his 
report  of  his  tour  in  Mexico,  tells  us  that  "his  host  at 
Cochiti,  New  Mexico,  could  not  sell  an  ear  of  corn  or  a 
string  of  chilli  without  the  consent  of  his  fourteen-year- 
old  daughter  Ignacia,  who  kept  house  for  her  widowed 
father."4 

The  point  we  have  now  reached  is  this  :  while  mother- 

1  Ratzel,  History  of  Mankind,  Vol.  II.  p.  130;  see  Thomas,  op.  cit., 
chapter  on  "  Sex  and  Primitive  Industry. 
*  Robertson  Smith,  Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia,  p.  65. 

3  Hoffman,  "  The  Menomini  Indians,"  Fourteenth  Rep.  of  the  Bur. 
of  Am.  Ethon.,  p.  288. 

4  Papers  of  the  Arch.  Inst.  of  Am.,  Vol.  II.  p.  138. 

L 


146          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

descent  did  not  constitute  or  make  necessary  rule  by 
women,  under  this  system  they  enjoyed  considerable 
power  as  the  result  (i)  of  their  position  as  property- 
holders,  (2)  of  their  freedom  in  marriage  and  the  social 
habits  arising  from  it.  This  conclusion  will  be  strength- 
ened if  we  return  to  our  examination  of  mother-right 
customs,  as  we  shall  find  them  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
I  must  select  a  few  examples  from  as  various  countries 
as  is  possible,  and  describe  them  very  briefly ;  not  because 
these  cases  offer  less  interest  than  the  matrilenial  tribes 
of  America,  but  because  of  the  length  to  which  this  part 
of  my  inquiry  is  rapidly  growing. 

Let  us  begin  with  Australia,  where  the  aboriginal 
population  is  in  a  more  primitive  condition  than  any 
other  race  whose  institutions  have  been  investigated.  In 
certain  tribes  the  family  has  hardly  begun  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  kin  in  general.  The  group  is  divided 
into  male  and  female  classes,  in  addition  to  the  division 
into  clans.1  This  is  so  among  the  tribes  of  Mount 
Gambier,  of  Darling  River,  and  of  Queensland.  Mar- 
riage within  the  clan  is  strictly  forbidden,  and  the  male 
and  female  classes  of  each  clan  are  regarded  as  brothers 
and  sisters.  But  as  every  man  is  brother  to  all  the  sisters 
of  his  clan,  he  is  husband  to  all  the  women  of  the  other 
clans  of  his  tribe.  Marriage  is  not  an  individual  act, 
it  is  a  social  condition.  The  custom  is  not  always  carried 
out  in  practice,  but  any  man  of  one  clan  has  the  right, 
if  he  wishes  to  exercise  it,  to  call  any  woman  belonging 
to  another  clan  of  his  tribe  his  wife,  and  to  treat  her 

1  Fison  and  Howitt,  Native  Tribes  of  Australia;  also  Kamilaroi  and 
Kurnai,  pp.  33,  65,  66.     See  also  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  294. 


FURTHER  EXAMPLES  147 

as  such.1  The  children  of  each  group  belong  naturally 
to  the  clan  of  the  mother,  and  there  is  no  legal  parent- 
hood between  them  and  their  father.  In  the  case  of  war 
the  son  must  join  the  maternal  tribe.  But  this  is  not  the 
universal  rule,  and  in  many  tribes  the  children  now 
belong  to  the  paternal  clan.  The  paternal  family  is 
beginning  to  be  established  in  Australia,  and  varied 
artifices  are  used  to  escape  from  the  tribal  marriage  and 
to  form  unions  on  an  individual  basis. 

Mother-right  is  still  in  force  in  parts  of  India,  though 
owing  to  the  influence  of  Brahmanism  on  the  aboriginal 
tribes  the  examples  are  fewer  than  might  be  expected. 
This  change  has  brought  descent  through  the  fathers, 
and  has  involved,  besides,  the  more  or  less  complete 
subjugation  of  women,  with  insistence  on  female  chastity, 
abolition  of  divorce,  infant  marriage,  and  perpetuation 
of  widowhood.2  Not  every  tribe  is  yet  thus  revolution- 
ised. Among  the  Kasias  of  south-east  India  the  husband 
lives  with  the  wife  or  visits  her  occasionally. 

"Laws  of  rank  and  property  follow  the  strictest  maternal  rule; 
when  a  couple  separate  the  children  remain  with  the  mother,  the 
son  does  not  succeed  his  father,  but  a  raja's  neglected  offspring 
may  become  a  common  peasant  or  a  labourer;  the  sister's  son 
succeeds  to  rank  and  is  heir  to  the  property."  8 

This  may  be  taken  as  an  extreme  example  of  the 
conditions  among  the  unchanged  tribes.  The  Garos 
tribe  have  an  interesting  marriage  custom.4  The  girl 

1  Letourneau,  op.  cit.,  pp.  44,  271-274.     Thomas,  op.  cit.,  p.  61. 
1  Hartland.  Primitive  Paternity,  Vol.  II.  pp.  155-156,  39-41. 

3  Dalton,  Ethnology  of  Bengal,  p.  54 ;  also  Tylor,  "  The  Matriarchal 
System,"  Nineteenth  Century,  July  1896,  p.  89. 

4  Dalton,  op.  cit.,  p.  63,  cited  by  Hartland.     I  would  suggest  that 
Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  may  have  had  this  marriage  custom  in  his  mind 
when  he  created  Ann.     See  p.  66. 

L2 


148          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

chooses  her  lover  and  invites  him  to  follow  her;  any 
advance  made  on  his  side  is  regarded  as  an  insult  to 
the  woman's  clan,  and  has  to  be  expiated  by  presents. 
This  marriage  is  very  similar  to  the  ceremony  of  capture, 
only  the  actors  change  parts;  it  is  here  the  bridegroom 
who  runs  away,  and  is  conducted  by  force  to  his  future 
wife  amidst  the  lamentations  of  his  relations. 

Even  tribes  that  have  adopted  paternal  descent  pre- 
serve numerous  customs  of  the  earlier  system.  The 
husband  still  remains  in  the  wife's  home  for  a  probation- 
ary period,  working  for  her  family.1  Women  retain 
rights  which  are  inconsistent  with  father-rule.  The 
choice  of  her  lover  often  remains  with  the  girl.  If  a 
girl  fancies  a  young  man,  all  she  has  to  do  is  to  give 
him  a  kick  on  the  leg  at  the  tribal  dance  of  the  Karama, 
and  then  the  parents  think  it  well  to  hasten  on  a  wedding. 
Among  Ghasiyas  in  United  Provinces  a  wife  is  permitted 
to  leave  her  husband  if  he  intrigues  with  another  woman, 
or  if  he  become  insane,  impotent,  blind  or  leprous, 
while  these  bodily  evils  do  not  allow  him  to  put  her 
away.2  We  find  relics  of  the  early  freedom  enjoyed  by 
women  in  the  licence  frequently  permitted  to  girls  before 
marriage.  Even  after  marriage  adultery  within  the  tribal 
rules  is  not  regarded  as  a  serious  offence.  Divorce  is 
often  easy,  at  the  wish  of  either  the  woman  or  the  man.3 
This  is  the  case  among  the  Santal  tribes,  which  are 

1  This   custom   prevails,    for   instance,    among   the    Kharwars   and 
Parahiya  tribes,  and  is  common  among  the  Ghasiyas,  and  is  also  prac- 
tised among  the  Tipperah  of  Bengal.     Among  the  Santdls  this  service- 
marriage  is  used  when  a  girl  is  ugly  or  deformed  and  cannot  be  married 
otherwise,  while  the  Badagas  of  the  Nil'giri  Hills  offer  their  daughters 
when  in  want  of  labourers. 

2  Crooke,  Tribes  and  Castes,  iii.  p.  242. 

8  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II.  pp.  156,  157. 


FURTHER   EXAMPLES  149 

found  in  Western  Bengal,  Northern  Orissa,  Bhagulpur 
and  the  Santal  Parganas.1  It  seems  probable  that 
fraternal  polyandry  must  formerly  have  been  practised. 

Polyandry  must  have  been  common  at  one  time  in 
southern  India.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  give  a  few 
examples.  The  interesting  Todas  tribe  of  the  Nil'giri 
Hills  practise  fraternal  polyandry.  The  husbands  of  the 
women  are  usually  real  brothers,  but  sometimes  they  are 
clan  brothers.  The  children  belong  to  the  eldest  brother, 
who  performs  the  ceremony  of  giving  the  mother  a  minia- 
ture bow  and  arrow;  all  offspring,  even  if  born  after  his 
death,  are  counted  as  his  until  one  of  the  other  brothers 
performs  this  ceremony.  It  is  also  allowed  sometimes 
for  the  wife  to  be  mistress  to  another  man  besides  her 
husbands,  and  any  children  born  of  such  unions  are 
counted  as  the  children  of  the  regular  marriage.  There 
is  little  restriction  in  love  of  any  kind.  In  the  Toda 
language  there  is  no  word  for  adultery.  It  would  even 
seem  that  "  immorality  attaches  rather  to  him  who 
grudges  his  wife  to  another  man."  2 

Similarly  among  a  fine  tribe  of  Hindu  mountaineers  at 
the  source  of  the  Djemmah  fraternal  polyandry  has  been 
proved  to  have  existed.  A  woman  of  this  tribe,  when 
asked  how  many  husbands  she  had,  answered,  "  Only 
four!"  "And  all  living?"  "Why  not?"  This  tribe 
had  a  high  standard  of  social  conduct;  they  held  lying 
in  horror,  and  to  deviate  from  the  truth  even  quite  inno- 
cently was  almost  a  sacrilege.3  To-day  the  Kammalaus 

1  Risley,  The  Tribes  and  Castes  of  Bengal,  Vol.  I.  pp.  228,  231. 
1  Rivers,    The    Todas ;    Schrott,    Tras.    Ethno.    Soc.    (New    Series), 
Vol.  VIII.  p.  261. 
*  Letourneau,  quoting  Skinner,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  78. 


150          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

(artisans)  of  Malabar  practise  fraternal  polyandry.  The 
wives  are  said  to  greatly  appreciate  the  custom ;  the  more 
husbands  they  have  the  greater  will  be  their  happiness.1 

At  another  extremity  of  India,  in  Ceylon,  the  poly- 
andric  rule  is  still  common,2  but  it  is  particularly  in 
lamaic  Thibet  that  fraternal  polyandry  is  in  full  vigour, 
for  in  this  country  religion  sanctions  the  custom,  and  it 
is  practised  by  the  ruling  classes.3  Its  customs  are  too 
well  known  to  need  description.  '  The  tyranny  of  man 
is  hardly  known  among  the  happy  women  of  Thibet; 
the  boot  is  perhaps  upon  the  other  leg,"  writes  Hartland.4 

Polyandry  is  a  survival  of  the  group-marriage  of  the 
mother-age.5  It  is  not  really  dependent  on,  though  in 
many  cases  it  occurs  in  connection  with,  the  economic 
causes  of  poverty  and  a  scarcity  of  women,  due  to  the 
practice  of  female  infanticide.  This  form  of  sexual 
association  has  evident  advantages  for  women  when  com- 
pared with  polygamy.  That  freedom  in  love  carried 

1  Thurston,  Ethnographic  Notes  in  Southern  India,  p.  114.     Polyandry 
has  flourished  not  only  among  the  primitive  races  of  India.     The 
Hindoo  populations  also   adopted  it,  and  traces  of  the  custom  may 
be  found  in  their  sacred  literature.     Thus  in  the  Mahabharata  the 
five  Panda va  brothers  marry  all  together  the  beautiful  Druaupadi,  with 
eyes  of  lotus  blue  (Mahabharata,  trad.  Fauche,  t.  II.  p.  148).     For  an 
account  of  polyandry  in  ancient  India  the  reader  should  consult  Jolly, 
Gundriss  der  Indo-Arischen  Philologie  und  Alter  turns  kunde. 

2  Davy,  Ceylon,  p.  286;  Sachot,  L'ile  de  Ceylon,  p.  25. 

3  Turner,  Thibet,  p.  348,  and  Hist.  Univ.  des.  Voy.,  Vol.  XXXI.  p.  434  ; 
Dalton,  Descriptive  Ethnology  of  Bengal,  p.  36. 

4  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II.  p.  164. 

5  This  is  the  opinion  of  Bernhoft,  quoted  by  I  wan  Bloch.     Marshall 
points  out  that  among  the  Todas  group-marriages  occur  side  by  side 
with  polyandry.     Bloch  also  notes  that  in  the  common  cases  where 
the  husband  has  a  claim  on  his  wife's  sister,  and  even  her  cousins 
and  aunts,  we  find  polygamy  developed  out  of  group-marriage.     The 
practice  of  wife  lending  and  wife  exchange  is  also  connected  with  the 
early  communal  marriage  (Sexual  History  of  Our  Times,  pp.  193-194). 
It  is  possible  that  prostitution  may  be  a  relic  of  this  early  sexual  freedom. 
What  is  moral  in  one  stage  of  civilisation  often  becomes  immoral  in 
another,  when  the  reasons  for  its  existing  have  changed. 


FURTHER  EXAMPLES  151 

with   it  domestic   and   social   rights   and  privileges   to 
women  I  have  no  longer  to  prove.1 

The  case  of  the  Nayars  of  Malabar,  where  polyandry 
exists  with  the  early  system  of  maternal  filiation,  is 
specially  instructive.  It  is  impossible  to  give  the  details 
of  their  curious  customs.  The  young  girls  are  married 
when  children  by  a  rite  known  as  tying  the  tali;  but  this 
marriage  serves  only  the  purpose  of  initiation,  and  is 
often  performed  by  a  stranger.  On  the  fourth  day  the 
fictitious  husband  is  required  to  divorce  the  girl.  After- 
wards any  number  of  marriages  may  be  entered  upon  2 
without  any  other  restrictions  than  the  prohibitions  rela- 
tive to  caste  and  tribe.  These  later  unions,  unlike  the 
solemn  initial  rite,  have  no  ceremony  connected  with 
them,  and  are  entered  into  freely  at  the  will  of  the  women 
and  their  families.  As  a  husband  the  man  of  the  Nayars 
cannot  be  said  to  exist;  he  does  not  as  a  rule  live  with 
his  wife.3  It  is  said  that  he  has  not  the  right  to  sit  down 
by  her  side  or  that  of  her  children,  he  is  merely  a  passing 
guest,  almost  a  stranger.  He  is,  in  fact,  reduced  to  the 
primitive  role  of  the  male,  and  is  simply  progenitor. 
"  No  Nayar  knows  his  father,  and  every  man  looks  upon 

1  Havelock  Ellis  writing  on  this  subject  ("Changing  Status  of 
Women,"  Nineteenth  Century,  Oct.  1886)  says:  "It  seems  that  in  the 
dawn  of  the  race  an  elaborate  social  organisation  permitted  a  more  or 
less  restricted  communal  marriage,  every  man  in  the  tribe  being  at 
the  outset  the  husband  of  every  woman,  first  practically,  then  theoreti- 
cally, and  that  the  social  organisation  which  had  this  point  of  departure 
was  particularly  favourable  to  women." 

1  It  is  a  matter  of  dispute  whether  a  woman  may  have  more  than  one 
husband  at  a  time.  The  older  accounts  state  this,  while  later  it  lias 
been  denied.  The  probability  is  that  this  was  the  custom,  but  that 
it  is  dying  out  under  modern  influences.  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  267. 

1  In  north  Malabar  a  custom  has  arisen  by  which  after  a  special 
ceremony  the  bridgroom  is  allowed  to  take  the  bride  to  live  in  his 
house,  but  in  the  case  of  his  death  she  must  at  once  return  to  her  own 
family. 


152         THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

his  sister's  children  as  his  heirs.  A  man's  mother 
manages  his  family;  and  after  her  death  his  eldest  sister 
assumes  the  direction."  The  property  belongs  to  the 
family  and  is  enjoyed  by  all  in  common  (though  personal 
division  is  coming  into  practice  under  modern  influences). 
It  is  directed  and  administered  by  the  maternal  uncle  or 
the  eldest  brother.1 

The  Malays  of  the  Pedang  Highlands  of  Sumatra 
have  institutions  bearing  many  points  of  similarity  with 
the  Nayars.  On  marriage  neither  husband  nor  wife 
changes  abode,  the  husband  merely  visits  the  wife, 
coming  at  first  by  day  to  help  her  work  in  the  rice-fields. 
Later  the  visits  are  paid  by  night  to  the  wife's  house. 
The  husband  has  no  rights  over  his  children,  who  belong 
wholly  to  the  wife's  suku,  or  clan.  Her  eldest  brother 
is  the  head  of  the  family  and  exercises  the  rights  and 
duties  of  a  father  to  her  children.2  The  marriage,  based 
on  the  ambel-anak,  in  which  the  husband  lives  with  the 
wife,  paying  nothing,  and  occupying  a  subordinate  posi- 
tion, may  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  former  conditions.8 

1  /.  A.  I.,  XII.   p.    292;    Hartland,   op.   cit.,   p.  288.     Letourneau, 
apparently  quoting  Bachpfen,  says  that  the  women  control  property. 
This  was  probably  an  earlier  custom,  when  the  power  was  more  truly  in 
the  hands  of  women,  and  had  not  passed  to  their  male  relatives. 

2  Wilken,  V erwantschap ,  p.  678 ;  Bijdragen,  XXXI.  p.  40. 

3  Havelock  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  291.     A  second  form 
of  marriage,  known  as  Jujur,  was  also  practised.     It  was  much  more 
elaborate,  and  shows  very  instructively  the  rise  of  father-right.     By 
it  the  authority  of  the  husband  over  his  wife  is  asserted  by  a  very 
complicated  system  of  payments ;  his  right  to  take  her  to  his  home, 
and  his  absolute  property  in  her  depending  wholly  on  these  payments. 
If  the  final  sum  is  paid  (but  this  is  not  commonly  claimed  except  in  the 
case  of  a  quarrel  between  the  families)  the  woman  becomes  to  all  intents 
the  slave  of  the  man ;  but  if  on  the  other  hand,  as  is  not  at  all  uncommon, 
the  husband  fails  or  has  difficulty  in  making    the  main  payment,  he 
becomes  the  debtor  of  his  wife's  family  and  is  practically  a  slave,  all 
his  labour  being  due  to  his  creditor  without  any  reduction  in  the  debt, 
which  must  be  paid  in  full,  before  he  regains  liberty.     (See  Marsden, 
History  of  Sumatra,  pp.  225,  235,  257,  262,  for  an  account  of  both 
marriages.) 


FURTHER  EXAMPLES  158 

But  among  other  tribes  who  have  come  in  contact  with 
outside  influences  this  custom  of  the  husband  visiting 
the  wife,  or  residing  in  her  house,  is  modified. 

From  a  private  correspondent,  a  resident  in  the  Malay 
States,  I  have  received  some  interesting  notes  about  the 
present  condition  of  the  native  tribes  and  the  position  of 
the  women.  In  most  of  the  Malay  States  exogamous 
matriarchy  has  in  comparatively  modern  times  been 
superseded  by  feudalism  (i.  e.  father-right).  But  where 
the  old  custom  survives  the  women  are  still  to  a  large 
extent  in  control.  The  husband  goes  to  live  in  the  wife's 
village;  thus  the  women  in  each  group  are  a  compact 
unity,  while  the  men  are  strangers  to  each  other  and  enter 
as  unorganised  individuals.  This  is  the  real  basis  of  the 
woman's  power.  In  other  tribes  where  the  old  custom 
has  changed  women  occupy  a  distinctly  inferior  position, 
and  under  the  influence  of  Islam  the  idea  of  secluding 
adult  women  has  been  for  centuries  spreading  and 
increasing  in  force. 

Male  kinship  prevails  among  the  Arabs,  but  the  late 
Professor  Robertson  Smith  discovered  abundant  evi- 
dence that  mother-right  was  practised  in  ancient  Arabia.1 
We  find  a  decisive  example  of  its  favourable  influence 
on  the  position  of  women  in  the  custom  of  beena  a  mar- 
riage. Under  such  a  system  the  wife  was  not  only  freed 
from  any  subjection  involved  by  the  payment  of  a  bride- 
price  (which  always  places  her  more  or  less  under  the 
authority  of  her  husband),  but  she  was  the  owner  of  the 
tent  and  household  property,  and  thus  enjoyed  the  liberty 
which  ownership  always  entails.  This  explains  how  she 

1  Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia. 

*  Havelock  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  pp.  391-392,  quoting  Robertson  Smith. 


154          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

was  able  to  free  herself  at  pleasure  from  her  husband, 
who  was  really  nothing  but  a  temporary  lover.1  Ibn 
Batua  in  the  fourteenth  century  found  that  the  women 
of  Zebid  were  perfectly  ready  to  marry  strangers.  The 
husband  might  depart  when  he  pleased,  but  his  wife  in 
that  case  could  never  be  induced  to  follow  him.  She 
bade  him  a  friendly  adieu  and  took  upon  herself  the 
whole  charge  of  any  child  of  the  marriage.  The  women 
in  the  Jahiliya 2  had  the  right  to  dismiss  their  husbands, 
and  the  form  of  dismissal  was  this :  "  If  they  lived  in 
a  tent  they  turned  it  round,  so  that  if  the  door  faced  east 
it  now  faced  west,  and  when  the  man  saw  this  he  knew 
that  he  was  dismissed  and  did  not  enter."  The  tent 
belonged  to  the  woman ;  the  husband  was  received  there 
and  at  her  good  pleasure.3 

A  further  striking  example  of  mother-right  is  furnished 
by  the  Mariana  Islands,  where  the  position  of  women 
was  distinctly  superior. 

"  Even  when  the  man  had  contributed  an  equal  share  of  property 
on  marriage,  the  wife  dictated  everything  and  the  man  could 
undertake  nothing  without  her  approval ;  but  if  the  woman  com- 
mitted an  offence,  the  man  was  held  responsible  and  suffered  the 
punishment.  The  women  could  speak  in  the  assembly,  they  held 
property,  and  if  a  woman  asked  anything  of  a  man,  he  gave  it  up 

1  Barlow,  Semitic  Origins,  p.  45. 

2  Robertson  Smith,  op.  cit.,  p.  65. 

3  This  kind  of  union  for  a  term  is  said  to  have  been  recognised  by 
Mahommed,  though  it  is  irregular  by  Moslem  law.     The  cases  of  beena 
marriage    are  very  frequent    among    widely  different    peoples.     (See 
Hartland,  Primitive  Paternity,  Vol.  II.  pp.  n,  13,  14,  19,  20,  24,  27, 
30-36,  38,  41-43,  51,  53,  55,  60-63,  67-72,  76,  77.)     Frazer  (Academy, 
March  27,  1886)  cites  an  interesting  example  among  the  tribes  on  the 
north   frontier  of  Abyssinia,  partially  Semitic  peoples,  not  yet  under 
the  influence  of  Islam,   who  preserve  a  system  of  marriage  closely 
resembling  the  beena  marriage,  but  have  as  well  a  purchase  marriage, 
by  which  a  wife  is  acquired  by  payment  of  a  bride-price  and  becomes 
the  property  of  her  husband.     (Quoted  by  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  p.  392  note.) 


THE   TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     155 

without  a  murmur.  If  a  wife  was  unfaithful,  the  husband  could 
send  her  home,  keep  her  property  and  kill  the  adulterer;  but  if 
the  man  was  guilty,  or  even  suspected  of  the  same  offence,  the 
women  of  the  neighbourhood  destroyed  his  house  and  all  his 
visible  property,  and  the  owner  was  fortunate  if  he  escaped  with 
a  whole  skin ;  and  if  the  wife  was  not  pleased  with  her  husband, 
she  withdrew  and  a  similar  attack  followed.  On  this  account 
many  men  were  not  married,  preferring  to  live  with  paid  women."  * 

A  similar  case  of  the  rebellion  of  men  against  their 
position  is  recorded  in  Guinea,  where  religious  symbolism 
was  used  by  the  husband  as  a  way  of  escape.  The 
maternal  system  held  with  respect  to  the  chief  wife. 

"  It  was  customary,  however,  for  a  man  to  buy  and  take  to  wife 
a  slave,  a  friendless  person  with  whom  he  could  deal  at  pleasure, 
who  had  no  kindred  that  could  interfere  for  her,  and  to  consecrate 
her  to  his  Bossum  or  god.  The  Bossum  wife,  slave  as  she  had 
been,  ranked  next  to  the  chief  wife,  and  was  exceptionally  treated. 
She  alone  was  very  jealously  guarded,  she  alone  was  sacrificed  at 
her  husband's  death.  She  was,  in  fact,  wife  in  a  peculiar  sense. 
And  having,  by  consecration,  been  made  of  the  kindred  and  wor- 
ship of  her  husband,  her  children  could  be  born  of  his  kindred 
and  worship."  2 

This  practice  of  having  a  slave-wife  who  was  the 
property  of  the  husband  became  more  and  more 
common;  and  was  one  of  the  causes  that  led  to  the 
establishment  of  father-right.  How  this  came  we  have 
now  to  see. 


IV. — The  Transition  to  Father-right 

In  the  preceding  sections  of  this  chapter  I  have  col- 
lected together,  with  as  much  exactitude  as  I  could,  many 

1  Thomas,    Sex   and   Society,    pp.    73-74.     Quoting   Waitz-Gerland , 
Anthropologie  der  Naturvolker,  Vol.  V.  p.  107. 
*  McLennan,  The  Patriarchal  Theory,  p.  235. 


156          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

examples  of  the  maternal  family.  I  want  now  to  refer 
briefly  to  a  few  further  cases,  which  will  make  clearer  the 
causes  which  led  to  the  adoption  of  father-right. 

Many  countries  where  the  patriarchal  system  is  firmly 
established  retain  practices  which  can  only  be  explained 
as  survivals  of  the  earlier  custom  of  mother-descent.1 
It  must  suffice  to  mention  one  or  two  examples.  In 
Burma,  which  offers  in  this  respect  a  curious  contrast  to 
India,  the  women  have  preserved  under  father-right  most 
of  the  privileges  of  mother-right.  This  is  the  more 
remarkable  as  the  law  of  marriage  and  the  relationship 
of  the  sexes  is  founded  on  the  code  of  Manu,  which  pro- 
claims aloud  the  inferiority  of  woman.  It  is  interesting, 
however,  to  note  that  the  code  recognises  only  three 
kinds  of  men  :  the  good  man,  the  indifferent  man,  and 
the  bad  man.  Women,  though  recognised  solely  in  their 
relation  as  wives,  are  placed  in  seven  classes  :  the  mother- 
wife,  the  sister-wife,  the  daughter-wife,  the  friend-wife, 
the  master-wife,  the  servant-wife,  and  the  slave-wife. 
Manu  holds  that  the  last  of  these,  the  slave-wife,  is  the 
best  wife.  It  is,  however,  certain  that  the  interpretation 
of  the  code  in  Burma  was  entirely  opposed  to  any  sub- 
jection of  the  wife.  That  mother-right  must  have  been 
once  practised  and  was  very  firmly  established  is  proved  by 
the  occurrence  of  brother-sister  marriages.  The  queens  of 
the  last  rulers  of  the  country,  Minden-Min  and  Thebaw, 
were  either  their  own  or  their  half-sisters,  and  the  power 
of  government  seems  to  have  been  almost  wholly  in  the 

1  Thomas,  op.  cit.,  p.  75,  points  out  that  this  survival  of  woman's 
power  after  the  rise  of  father-right  is  similar  to  the  assertion  of  male- 
power  under  mother-right  in  the  person  of  the  woman's  brother  or  male 
relative. 


THE  TRANSITION  TO  FATHER-RIGHT     157 

hands  of  these  queens.  The  patriarchal  custom,  so  far 
as  the  position  of  women  was  concerned,  is  but  a  thread, 
binding  them  in  their  marriage,  but  leaving  them  entirely 
free  in  other  respects.  The  Burmese  wife  is  much  more 
the  master  than  the  slave  of  her  husband,  though  she  is 
clever  enough  as  a  rule  not  to  let  him  feel  any  incon- 
venience from  her  power,  which,  therefore,  he  accepts. 
The  exceptional  position  of  the  women  is  clearly  indi- 
cated by  the  fact  that  they  enter  freely  into  trade,  and, 
indeed,  carry  out  most  of  the  business  of  the  country. 
Nearly  all  the  shops  are  kept  by  women.  In  the  markets, 
where  everything  that  any  one  could  posibly  want  is  sold, 
almost  all  the  dealers  are  women.  All  classes  of  the 
Burmese  girls  receive  their  training  in  these  markets ;  the 
daughters  of  the  rich  sell  the  costly  and  beautiful  stuffs, 
the  poorer  girls  sell  the  cheaper  wares.  It  is  this  training 
which  accounts  for  the  business  capacity  shown  by  the 
women.  The  boys  are  trained  by  the  priests,  as  every 
boy  is  required,  "in  order  to  purify  his  soul,  to  acquire 
a  knowledge  of  sacred  things."  This  explains  a  great 
deal.  It  would  seem  that  religion  enforces  the  same 
penalties  on  men  that  in  most  countries  fall  upon  women. 
The  Burmese  women  are  very  attractive,  as  is  testified 
by  all  who  know  them.  The  streets  of  the  towns  are 
thronged  with  women  at  all  hours  of  the  day,  and  they 
show  the  greatest  delight  in  everything  that  is  lively 
and  gay. 

Given  such  complete  freedom  of  women,  it  is  self- 
evident  that  the  sexual  relationships  will  also  be  free. 
Very  striking  are  the  conditions  of  divorce.  The  mar- 
riage contract  can  be  dissolved  freely  at  the  wish  of  both, 


158          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

or  even  of  one,  of  the  partners.     In  the  first  case  the 
family  property  is  divided  equally  between  the  wife  and 
the  husband,  while  if  only  one  partner  desires  to  be  freed 
the  property  goes  to  the  partner  who  is  left.     The  chil- 
dren of  the  marriage  remain  with  the  mother  while  they 
are  young;  but  the  boys  belong  to  the  father.     I  wish  it 
were  possible  for  me  to  give  a  fuller  account  of  the 
Burmese  family.     The  freedom  and  active  work  of  the 
women  offer  many  points  of  special  interest.     One  thing 
further  must  be   noted.     The  Burmese   women   would 
seem  not  to  be  wholly  satisfied  with  their  power,  disliking 
the  work  and  responsibility  which  their  freedom  entails. 
For  this  reason  many  of  them  prefer  to  marry  a  Chinese 
husband;  he  works  for  them,  while  with  a  husband  of 
their  own  country  they  have  to  work  for  him.     This  is 
very  instructive.     It  points  to  what  I  believe  to  be  the 
truth.     The  loss  of  her  freedom  by  woman  is  often  the 
result  of  her  own  desire  for  protection  and  her  dislike  of 
work,  and  is  not  caused  by  man's  tyranny.     Woman's 
own  action  in  this  matter  is  not  sufficiently  recognised. 
I  must  not  enter  upon  this  here,  as  I  shall  return  to  the 
subject  later  in  this  chapter.    We  must  now  consider  the 
traces  left  by  mother-descent  in  Japan  and  China. 

In  Japan,  as  among  the  Basques,  filiation  is  subordi- 
nated to  the  transmission  of  property.  It  is  to  the  first- 
born, whether  a  boy  or  a  girl,  that  the  inheritance  is 
transmitted,  and  he  or  she  is  forbidden  to  abandon  it. 
At  the  time  of  marriage  the  husband  or  wife  must  take 
the  name  of  the  heir  or  heiress  who  marries  and  per- 
sonifies the  property.  Filiation  is  thus  sometimes 
paternal  and  sometimes  maternal.  The  maternal  uncle 


THE  TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     159 

still  bears  the  name  of  "  second  little  father." l  The 
children  of  the  same  father,  but  not  of  the  same  mother, 
were  formerly  allowed  to  marry,  a  decisive  proof  of 
mother-descent.  The  wife  remained  with  her  own  rela- 
tives, and  the  husband  had  the  right  of  visiting  her  by 
night.  The  word  commonly  used  for  marriage  signified 
to  slip  by  night  into  the  house.  It  was  not  until  the 
fourteenth  century  that  the  husband's  residence  was  the 
home  of  the  wife,  and  marriage  became  a  continued 
living  together  by  the  married  pair.  Even  now  when  a 
man  marries  an  only  daughter  he  frequently  lives  with 
her  family,  and  the  children  take  her  name.  There  is 
also  a  custom  by  which  a  man  with  daughters,  but  no  son, 
adopts  a  stranger,  giving  him  one  of  his  daughters  in 
marriage;  the  children  are  counted  as  the  heirs  of  the 
maternal  grandfather.2  Similar  survivals  are  frequent 
in  China.  The  patriarchate  is  rigidly  established,  but 
there  is  evidence  to  show  that  the  family  in  this  ancient 
civilisation  has  passed  through  the  usual  stages  of 
development,  having  for  its  starting-point  the  familial 
clan,  and  passing  from  this  through  the  stage  of  mother- 
right.3  The  Chinese  language  itself  attests  the  ancient 
existence  of  the  earliest  form  of  marriage,  contracted  by 
a  group  of  brothers  having  their  wives  in  common,  but 
not  marrying  their  sisters.  Thus  a  Chinaman  calls  the 
sons  of  his  brothers  "his  sons,"  but  he  considers  those 
of  his  sisters  as  his  nephews.4  Certain  of  the  aboriginal 

1  Letourneau.  op.  cit.,  p.  323,  who  quotes  Lubbock,  Orig.  Civil.,  p.  177. 

1  Hartland,  op.  cit..  Vol.  II,  p.  14,  citing  Morgan,  Systems  of  Con- 
sanguinity. 

*  Letourneau,  op.  cit.,  t>.  323. 

4  Morgan,  Systems  of  Consanguinity  ("  Smithsonian  Contributions  "), 
Vol.  XVII.  pp.  416-417. 


160          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

tribes  still  require  the  husband  to  live  with  his  wife's 
family  for  a  period  of  seven  or  ten  years  before  he  is 
allowed  to  take  her  to  his  home.  The  eldest  child  is 
given  to  the  husband,  the  second  belongs  to  the  family 
of  the  wife.1  The  authority  which  the  Chinese  mother 
exercises  over  her  son's  marriage  and  over  his  wife  can 
only  be  explained  by  mother-right  customs.  There  are 
many  other  examples  which  I  must  pass  over. 

In  the  Island  of  Madagascar,  with  whose  interesting 
civilisation,  as  it  existed  before  the  unfortunate  conquest 
of  the  country  by  the  French,  I  am  personally  acquainted, 
mother-right  has  left  much  more  than  traces.2  Great 
freedom  in  sexual  relations  was  permitted  to  the  men, 
and  in  certain  cases  to  women  also.  There  was  no  word 
in  the  native  language  for  virgin;  the  word  mpitovo, 
commonly  used,  means  only  an  unmarried  woman.  On 
certain  festive  ceremonies  the  licence  was  very  great. 
The  hindrances  to  marriage  were  much  more  stringent 
with  the  mother's  relations  than  with  the  father's. 
Divorce  was  frequent  and  easy;  the  power  to  exercise 
it  rested  with  the  husband ;  but  the  wife  could,  and  often 
did,  run  away,  and  thus  compel  a  divorce.  A  Malagasy 
proverb  compared  marriage  to  a  knot  so  lightly  tied  that 
it  could  be  undone  by  a  touch.  Such  freedom  was  due 
to  the  great  desire  for  children;  every  child  was  welcome 
in  the  family,  whatever  its  origin.3  The  children 

1  Hartland,  Vol.  II.  p.  45,  quoting  Gray,  China,  Vol.  II.  p.  304. 

2  This  is  the  opinion  of  Hartland.     He  quotes  Ellis,  History  of  Mada- 
gascar, and  Sibree,  The  Great  African  Island.     I  am  able  to  speak  as  to 
the  truths  of  the  facts  given  in  their  books  from  my  knowledge  of 
the  Malagasy  before  the  French  occupation  of  the  island.    Madagascar  is 
my  birth-place,  and  my  father  was  a  missionary  in  the  country  at  the 
same  time  as  Mr.  Ellis  and  Mr.  Sibree. 

3  As  an  instance  of  the  importance  attached  to  children,   I  may 


THE   TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     161 

belonged  to  the  husband,  and  so  complete  was  this  pos- 
session, that  in  the  case  of  a  divorce  not  only  the  children 
previously  born,  but  any  the  wife  might  afterwards  bear, 
were  counted  as  his. 

Among  the  ruling  classes  mother-right  remained  in 
its  early  force.  The  royal  family  and  nobility  traced  their 
descent,  contrary  to  the  general  practice,  through  the 
mother,  and  not  through  the  father.  The  rights  of  an 
unmarried  queen  were  great.  She  was  permitted  to  have 
a  family  by  whomsoever  she  wished,  and  her  children 
were  recognised  as  legitimately  royal  through  her. 
Among  the  Hovas  not  only  wealth,  but  political  digni- 
ties, and  even  sacerdotal  functions,  were  transmitted  to 
the  nephew,  in  preference  to  the  son. 

In  the  adjacent  continent  of  Africa  we  find  similar 
privileges  enjoyed  by  royal  women.  A  delightful 
example  is  given  by  Frazer  *  in  Central  Africa,  where 
a  small  state,  near  to  the  Chambezi  river,  is  governed 
by  a  queen,  who  belongs  to  the  reigning  family  of 
Ubemba.  She  bears  the  title  Mamfumer,  "  Mother  of 
Kings."  The  privileges  attached  to  this  dignity  are 
numerous ;  the  husbands  may  be  chosen  at  will  and  from 
among  the  common  people. 

"The  chosen  man  becomes  prince  consort,  without  sharing  in 
the  government  of  affairs.  He  is  bound  to  leave  everything  to 
follow  his  royal  and  often  little  accommodating  spouse.  To  show 
that  in  these  households  the  rights  are  inverted  and  that  a  man 
may  be  changed  into  a  woman,  the  queen  takes  the  title  of  Mon- 


mention  the  fact  that,  after  my  birth  my  father  was  not  announced  to 
preach  under  his  own  name,  but  as  "  the  father  of  Keteka,"  the  Malagasy 
equivalent  of  my  name. 

1  Frazer,  Golden  Bough,  Pt.  I.     The  Magical  Art,  Vol.  II.  p.  277. 

M 


162          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

sieur  and  the  husband  that  of  Madame."  A  visitor  to  this  state,1 
who  had  an  interview  with  the  queen,  reports  that,  "she  was  a 
woman  of  gigantic  stature,  wearing  many  amulets." 

Battle  reported  that  "  Loango  was  ruled  by  four 
princes,  the  sons  of  a  former  king's  sister,  since  the  sons 
of  a  king  never  succeed.2  Frazer  gives  an  account  of 
the  tyrannical  authority  of  the  princesses  in  this  state.3 

"The  princesses  are  free  to  choose  and  divorce  their  husbands 
at  pleasure,  and  to  cohabit  at  the  same  time  with  other  men.  The 
husbands  are  nearly  always  plebeians.  The  lot  of  a  prince  consort 
is  not  a  happy  one,  for  he  is  rather  the  slave  and  prisoner  than  the 
mate  of  his  imperious  princess.  In  marrying  her  he  engages  never 
more  to  look  at  a  woman ;  when  he  goes  out  he  is  preceded  by 
guards  whose  duty  it  is  to  drive  all  females  from  the  road  where 
he  is  to  pass.  If,  in  spite  of  these  precautions,  he  should  by  ill- 
luck  cast  his  eyes  on  a  woman,  the  princess  may  have  his  head 
chopped  off,  and  commonly  exercised,  or  used  to  exercise,  the 
right.  This  sort  of  libertinism,  sustained  by  power,  often  carries 
the  princesses  to  the  greatest  excesses,  and  nothing  is  so  much 
dreaded  as  their  anger." 

In  Africa  descent  through  women  is  the  rule,4  though 
there  are  exceptions,  and  these  are  increasing.  The 
amusing  account  given  by  Miss  Kingsley 5  of  Joseph,  a 
member  of  the  Batu  tribe  in  French  Congo,  strikingly 
illustrates  the  prevalence  of  the  custom.  When  asked 
by  a  French  official  to  furnish  his  own  name  and  the 
name  of  his  father,  Joseph  was  wholly  nonplussed.  "  My 
fader?"  he  said.  "Who  my  fader?"  Then  he  gave 
the  name  of  his  mother. 

1  Father  Guillem6,  Missiones  Catholiques,  XXXIV.  (1902),  p.  16. 

a  Lubbock,  Origin  of  Civilisation,  p.  151. 

8  Frazer,  Ibid.,  p.  276. 

4  "  Birth,"  we  are  told  by  a  keen  observer,  who  has  lived  for  many 
years  in  intimate  converse  with  the  natives,  "  sanctifies  the  child ;  birth 
alone  gives  him  status  as  a  member  of  his  mother's  family  "  (Dennett, 
Jour.  Afr.  Soc.,  I.  p.  265).  8  Travels,  p.  109. 


THE   TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     163 

The  case  is  the  same  among  the  Negroes.  The  Fanti 
of  the  Gold  Coast  may  be  taken  as  an  example.  Among 
them  an  intensity  of  affection  (accounted  for  partly  by  the 
fact  that  the  mothers  have  exclusive  care  of  the  children) 
is  felt  for  the  mother,  while  the  father  is  hardly  known, 
or  disregarded,  notwithstanding  that  he  may  be  a  wealthy 
and  powerful  man  and  the  legal  husband  of  the  mother.1 
The  practice  of  the  Wamoima,  where  the  son  of  a  sister 
is  preferred  in  legacies,  "  because  a  man's  own  son  is  only 
the  son  of  his  wife,"  is  typical.2  The  Bush  husband  does 
not  live  with  his  wife,  and  often  has  wives  in  different 
places.  The  maternal  uncle  supplies  his  place  in  the 
family. 

Wherever  mother-right  has  progressed  towards  father- 
right,  as  is  the  condition,  broadly  speaking,  in  the  African 
continent,  the  supreme  authority  is  vested  in  the  maternal 
uncle.  The  tribal  duty  of  blood-revenge  falls  to  him, 
even  against  the  father.  Thus,  in  some  cases,  if  a  woman 
is  murdered,  the  duty  of  revenge  is  undertaken  by  her 
kinsman.3  In  the  state  of  Loango  among  the  common 
people  the  uncle  is  addressed  as  tate  (father).  He  has 
even  the  power  to  sell  his  sister's  children.4  The  child 
is  so  entirely  the  property  of  the  kin  that  he  may  be  given 
in  pledge  for  their  debts.  Among  the  Bavili  the  mother 
has  the  right  to  pawn  the  child,  but  she  must  first  consult 
the  father,  so  that  he  may  have  a  chance  of  giving  her 

1  Hartland,  quoting  Mr.  Sarbah,  a  native  barrister,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I. 
p.  286. 

*  Lippert,  Kulturgeschichte,  Vol.  II.  p.  57. 

3  This  is  done  among  the  Beni  A  me  r  on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea  and 
in  the  Barka  valley,  which  is  the  more  remarkable  as  mother-descent 
has  fallen  into  desuetude  under  the  influence  of  Islamism.  (Hartland, 
Vol.  I.  p.  274,  quoting  Munzinger,  Osta/rikanische  studien.) 

*  Bastian,  Loango- Kustc,  I.  p.  166. 

M  2 


164          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

goods  to  save  the  pledging.1  This  is  very  plainly  a  step 
towards  father-right.  There  is  no  distinction  between 
legitimate  and  illegitimate  children.  Similar  conditions 
prevail  among  the  Alladians  of  the  Ivory  Coast,  but  here 
the  mother  cannot  pledge  her  children  without  the  con- 
sent of  her  brother  or  other  male  head  of  the  family. 
The  father  has  the  right  to  ransom  the  child.2  An  even 
stronger  example  of  the  property  value  of  children  is 
furnished  by  the  custom  found  among  many  tribes,  by 
which  the  father  has  to  make  a  present  to  the  wife's  kin 
when  a  child  dies  :  this  is  called  "  buying  the  child." 

These  cases,  with  the  inferences  they  suggest,  show 
that  though  mother-descent  may  be  strongly  established 
in  Africa,  this  does  not  confer  (except  to  the  royal  prin- 
cesses) any  special  distinction  upon  women.  This  is 
explained  if  we  recognise  that  a  transitional  period  has 
been  reached,  when,  under  the  pressure  of  social,  and 
particularly  of  military  activities,  the  government  of  the 
tribe  has  passed  to  the  male  kindred  of  the  women.  It 
wants  but  a  step  further  for  the  establishment  of  father- 
right. 

There  are  many  cases  pointing  to  this  new  father- 
force  asserting  itself  and  pushing  aside  the  earlier  order. 
Again  I  can  give  one  or  two  examples  only.  Among 

1  Dennett,  Jour.  Afr.  Soc.,  I.  p.  266. 

*  Jour.  Afr.  Soc.,  I.  p.  412.    See  Hartland,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  275-288. 

3  A  similar  custom  prevails  among  Maori  people  of  New  Zealand. 
When  a  child  dies,  or  even  meets  with  an  accident,  the  mother's  rela- 
tions, headed  by  her  brother,  turn  out  in  force  against  the  father.  He 
must  defend  himself  until  wounded.  Blood  once  drawn  the  combat 
ceases;  but  the  attacking  party  plunders  his  house  and  appropriates 
the  husband's  property,  and  finally  sits  down  to  a  feast  provided  by 
him  (Old  New  Zealand,  p.  no).  This  case  is  the  more  extraordinary 
as  the  Maori  reckon  descent  through  the  father ;  it  is  doubtless  a  custom 
persisting  from  an  earlier  time. 


THE   TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     165 

Wayao  and  Mang'anja  of  the  Shire  highlands,  south  of 
Lake  Nyassa,  a  man  on  marrying  leaves  his  own  village 
and  goes  to  live  in  that  of  his  wife ;  but,  as  an  alternative, 
he  is  allowed  to  pay  a  bride-price,  in  which  case  he  takes 
his  wife  away  to  his  home.1  Whenever  we  find  the  pay- 
ment of  a  bride-price,  there  is  sure  indication  of  the  decay 
of  mother-right :  woman  has  become  property.  Among 
the  Bassa  Komo  of  Nigeria  marriage  is  usually  effected 
by  an  exchange  of  sisters  or  other  female  relatives.  The 
women  are  supposed  to  be  faithful  to  their  husbands. 
If,  however,  as  frequently  happens,  there  is  a  preliminary 
courtship  period,  during  which  the  marriage  is  considered 
as  provisional,  considerable  licence  is  granted  to  the 
woman.  Chastity  is  only  regarded  as  a  virtue  when  the 
woman  has  become  the  property  of  the  husband.  The 
men  may  marry  as  many  wives  as  they  have  sisters  or 
female  relatives  to  give  in  exchange.  In  this  tribe  the 
women  look  after  the  children,  but  the  boys,  when  four 
years  old,  go  to  work  and  live  with  their  fathers.2  The 
husbands  of  the  Bambala  tribe  (inhabiting  the  Congo 
states  between  the  rivers  Inzia  and  Kwilu)  have  to 
abstain  from  visiting  their  wives  for  a  year  after  the  birth 
of  each  child,  but  they  are  allowed  to  return  to  her  on  the 
payment  to  her  father  of  two  goats.3  Among  the  Basanga 
on  the  south-west  of  Lake  Moeru  the  children  of  the  wife 
belong  to  the  mother's  kin,  but  the  children  of  slaves  are 
the  property  of  the  father.4 

1  Macdonald,  Africana,  Vol.  I.  p.  136. 

*  Jour.  Afr.  Soc.,  VIII.  pp.  15-17.     This  tribe  now  traces  descent 
through  the  father. 

»  Torday  and  Joyce,  /.  A.  I.,  XXXV.  p.  410. 
4  Arnot,  Garenganze,  p.  242. 


166          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

It  is  rendered  clear  by  such  cases  as  these,  that  the 
rise  of  father-right  was  dependent  on  property  and  had 
nothing  to  do  with  blood  relationship.  The  payment  of 
a  bride-price,  the  giving  of  a  sister  in  exchange,  as  also 
marriage  with  a  slave,  gained  for  the  husband  the  control 
over  his  wife  and  ownership  of  her  children.  I  could 
bring  forward  much  more  evidence  in  proof  of  this  fact 
did  the  limits  of  my  space  allow  me  to  do  this ;  such  cases 
are  common  in  all  parts  of  the  world  where  the  transi- 
tional stage  from  mother-right  to  father-right  has  been 
reached.  But  I  believe  that  the  causes  by  which  the 
father  gained  his  position  as  the  dominant  partner  in 
marriage  must  be  clear  to  every  one  from  the  examples 
I  have  given.  I  will,  therefore,  quote  only  one  final  and 
most  instructive  case.  It  illustrates  in  a  curious  way  the 
conflict  between  the  old  rights  of  the  woman  and  the 
rising  power  of  the  male  force  in  connection  with  mar- 
riage. It  occurs  among  the  Hassanyeh  Arabs  of  the 
White  Nile,  where  the  wife  passes  by  contract  for  only 
a  portion  of  her  time  under  the  authority  of  her  husband. 

"When  the  parents  of  the  man  and  the  woman  meet  to  settle 
the  price  of  the  woman,  the  price  depends  on  how  many  days  in 
the  week  the  marriage  tie  is  to  be  strictly  observed.  The  woman's 
mother  first  of  all  proposes  that,  taking  everything  into  considera- 
tion, with  due  regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  family,  she  could  not 
think  of  binding  her  daughter  to  a  due  observance  of  that  chastity 
which  matrimony  is  expected  to  command  for  more  than  two  days 
in  the  week.  After  a  great  deal  of  apparently  angry  discussion, 
and  the  promise  on  the  part  of  the  relations  of  the  man  to  pay 
more,  it  is  arranged  that  the  marriage  shall  hold  good  as  is 
customary  among  the  first  families  of  the  tribe,  for  four  days  in 
the  week,  viz.  Monday,  Tuesday,  Wednesday  and  Thursday,  and 
in  compliance  with  old  established  custom,  the  marriage  rites 
during  the  three  remaining  days  shall  not  be  insisted  on,  during 


THE  TRANSITION  TO  FATHER-RIGHT     167 

which  days  the  bride  shall  be  perfectly  free  to  act  as  she  may 
think  proper,  either  by  adhering  to  her  husband  and  home,  or  by 
enjoying  her  freedom  and  independence  from  all  observance  of 
matrimonial  obligation."  1 

We  have  at  length  concluded  our  investigation  of  this 
first  period  of  organised  society,  and  have  ascertained 
many  facts  that  we  can  use  as  a  touchstone  to  try  the  truth 
of  the  various  theories  that  are  put  forward  with  regard 
to  woman  and  her  position  in  the  family  and  in  the  State. 
The  importance  of  the  mother-age  to  women  is  evident. 
Thus  I  offer  no  apology  for  the  length  at  which  I  have 
treated  the  subject.  It  has  seemed  to  me  after  careful 
revision  that  no  one  of  the  examples  given  can  be  omitted. 
Facts  are  of  so  much  more  importance  than  opinions  if 
we  are  to  come  to  the  truth. 

Without  attempting  to  trace  exhaustively  the  history 
or  even  to  enumerate  the  peoples  living,  or  who  have 
lived,  under  mother-right  customs,  we  have  examined 
many  and  varied  cases  of  the  actual  working  of  this 
system,  with  special  reference  to  the  position  held  by 
women.  The  examples  have  been  chosen  from  all  parts 
of  the  world,  so  as  to  prove  (what  is  sometimes  denied) 
that  mother-right  has  not  been  confined  to  any  one  race, 
that  it  is  not  a  local  custom  under  special  conditions,  but 
that  it  has  been  a  necessary  stage  of  growth  of  human 
societies.  My  aim  has  been  to  illustrate  the  stages 
through  which  society  passed  from  mother-right  to  father- 
right.  It  has  not  been  possible  to  arrange  the  evidence 
in  any  exact  progressive  sequence,  but  I  hope  the  cases 

1  Spencer,  Descriptive  Sociology,  Vol.  V.  p.  8,  citing  Petherick,  Egypt, 
the  Soudan,  and  Central  Africa,  pp.  140-144.  This  case  is  quoted  by 
Thomas,  op.  cit.,  pp.  85,  86. 


168          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

given  will  make  clear  what  I  believe  to  have  been  the 
general  trend  of  growth  :  at  first  the  power  in  the  hands 
of  the  women,  but  this  giving  way  to  the  slow  but  steady 
usurping  of  the  mother's  authority  by  the  ever-assertive 
male. 

I  shall  now  conclude  this  study  of  the  mother-age  by 
attempting  to  formulate  the  general  truths,  which,  it 
seems  to  me,  may  be  drawn  from  the  examples  we  have 
examined. 

I.  The  first  effort  of  primitive  society  was  to  establish 
some  form  of  order,  and  in  that  order  the  women  of  the 
group  were  the  more  stable  and  predominant  partners  in 
the  family  relationship. 

II.  Impelled  by  the  conditions  of  motherhood  to  a 
more  settled  life  than  the  men  of  the  tribe,  women  were 
the  first  agriculturists,  weavers,  dyers  and  dressers  of 
skins,   potters,   the  domesticators  of  animals,   the  first 
architects,  and  sometimes  the  primitive  doctors — in  a 
word,  the  inventors  and  organisers  of  the  peaceful  art  of 
life.1    Primitive  women  were  strong  in  body 2  and  capable 

1  For  fuller  information  on  this  important  subject  the  reader  is 
referred  to  Professor  Otis  Mason,  who  gives  a  picturesque  summary  of 
the  work  done  by  women  among  the  primitive  tribes  of  America  (Ameri- 
can Antiquarian,  January  1889,  "  The  Ulu,  or  Woman's  Knife  of  the 
Eskimo,"  Report  of  the  United  States  National  Museum,  1890).  H.  Ellis, 
Man  and  Woman,  pp.  1-17,  and  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  123-146, 
give  interesting  accounts  of  the  division  of  labour  among  primitive 
people,  showing  the  important  part  women  took  in  the  start  of  indus- 
trialism. For  direct  examples  from  primitive  peoples,  the  works  of 
Fison  and  Howit,  James  Macdonald,  Professor  Haddow,  Hearn,  Morgan, 
Bancroft,  Lubbock,  Ratzel,  Schoolcroft  and  other  anthropologists 
should  be  consulted. 

*  It  is  an  entirely  mistaken  view,  founded  on  insufficient  knowledge, 
that  in  early  civilisations  women  vere  a  source  of  weakness  to  the  men 
of  the  tribe  or  group,  and,  thus,  liable  to  oppression.  The  very  reverse 
is  the  truth.  Fison  and  Howit,  who  discuss  the  question,  say  of  the 
Australian  women,  "  In  time  of  peace  they  are  the  hardest  workers  and 
the  most  useful  members  of  the  community."  In  time  of  war,  "  they 


THE   TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     169 

in  work.  The  power  they  enjoyed  as  well  as  their  mani- 
fold activities  were  a  result  of  their  position  as  mothers, 
this  function  being  to  them  a  source  of  strength  and  not 
a  plea  of  weakness. 

III.  Moral    ideas,    as   we    understand   them,    hardly 
existed.     The  oldest  form  of  marriage  was  what  is  known 
as  "  group  marriage,"  which  was  the  union  of  two  tribal 
groups  or  clans,  the  men  of  one  totem  group  marrying 
the  women  of  another,  and  vice  versa,  but  no  man  or 
woman  having  one  particular  wife  or  husband. 

IV.  The   individual   relationship   between  the   sexes 
began  with  the  reception  of  temporary  lovers  by  the 
woman  in  her  own  home.     But  as  society  progressed,  a 
relationship  thus  formed  would  tend  under  favourable 
circumstances  to  be  continued,  and,  in  some  cases,  per- 
petuated.    The  lover  thus  became  the  husband,  but  he 
was  still  without  property  right,  with  no — or  very  little — 
control  over  the  woman,  and  none  over  her  children, 
occupying,  indeed,  the  position  of  a  more  or  less  perma- 
nent guest  in  her  hut  or  tent. 

V.  The  social  organisation  which  followed  this  custom 
was  in  most  cases — and  always,  I  believe,  in  their  primi- 
tive form — favourable  to  women.     Kinship  was  recog- 
nised  through  the   mother,   and   the   continuity  of   the 

are  perfectly  capable  of  taking  care  of  themselves  at  all  times,  and  so 
far  from  being  an  encumbrance  on  the  warriors,  they  will  fight,  if  need 
be,  as  bravely  as  the  men,  and  with  even  greater  ferocity  "  (Kamilaroi 
and  Kurnai,  pp.  133-147,  358).  This  is  no  exceptional  case,  and  is 
confirmed  by  the  reports  of  investigators  of  widely  different  peoples. 
I  may  mention  the  ancient  Iberian  women  of  Northern  Spain,  whose 
bravery  in  battle  is  testified  to  by  Strabo  :  the  descendants  of  these 
women  still  carry  on  the  greater  part  of  the  active  labour  connected 
with  agriculture  (Spain  Revisited,  pp.  191-292).  In  our  own  day  we 
have  the  witness  to  the  same  truth  in  the  heroic  part  taken  by  women 
in  the  Balkan  army. 


170          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

family  thus  depending  solely  on  the  woman,  it  followed 
she  was  the  holder  of  all  property.  Her  position  and 
that  of  her  children  was,  by  this  means,  assured,  and  in  the 
case  of  a  separation  it  was  the  man  who  departed,  leaving 
her  in  possession.  The  woman  was  the  head  of  the 
household,  and  in  some  instances  held  the  position  of 
tribal  chief. 

VI.  This  early  power  of  women,  arising   from  the 
recognition  alone  of  womb-kinship,  with  the  resulting 
freedom  in   sexual  relationships  permitted   to  women, 
could    not    continue.      It    was    no    more    possible    for 
society  to  be  built  up  on  mother-right  alone  than  it  is 
possible  for  it  to  remain  permanently  based  on  father- 
right. 

VII.  It  is  important  to  note  that  the  causes  which  led 
to  the  change  in  the  position  of  the  sexes  had  no  direct 
connection  with  moral  development;  it  was  not  due,  as 
many  have  held,  to  the  recognition  of  fatherhood.     The 
cause  was  quite  different  and  was  founded  on  property. 
It  arose,  in  the  first  instance,  through  a  property  value 
being  connected  with  women  themselves.     As  soon  as 
the  women's  kin  began  to  see  in  their  women  a  means 
by  exchange  of  obtaining  wives  for  themselves,  and  also 
the  possibility  of  gaining  worldly  goods,  both  in  the 
property  held  by  women,  and  by  means  of  the  service 
and  presents  that  could  be  claimed  from  their  lovers,  we 
find  them  exercising  more  or  less  strict  supervision  over 
the  alliances  of  their  female  relatives. 

VIII.  At  first,  and  for  a  long  time,  the  early  freedom 
of  women  persisted  in  the  widely  spread  custom  of  a  pre- 
liminary period  before  marriage  of  unrestricted  sexual 


THE   TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     171 

relationships.     But  permanent  unions  became  subject  to 
the  consent  of  the  woman's  kindred. 

It  was  in  this  way,  I  am  certain,  and  for  no  moral  con- 
siderations that  the  stringency  of  the  sexual  code  was 
first  tightened  for  women. 

IX.  At  a  much  later  date  virginity  came  to  have  a 
special  market-value,  from  which  time  a  jealous  watch 
began  to  be  kept  upon  maidenhood. 

It  seems  to  me  of  very  great  importance  that  women 
should  grasp  firmly  this  truth  :  the  virtue  of  chastity  owes 
its  origin  to  property.  Our  minds  fall  so  readily  under 
the  spell  of  such  ideas  as  chastity  and  purity.  There  is 
a  mass  of  real  superstition  on  this  question — a  belief  in 
a  kind  of  magic  in  purity.  But,  indeed,  chastity  had  at 
first  no  connection  with  morals.  The  sense  of  ownership 
has  been  the  seed-plot  of  our  moral  code.  To  it  we  are 
indebted  for  the  first  germs  of  the  sexual  inhibitions 
which,  sanctified  by  religion  and  supported  by  custom, 
have,  under  the  unreasoned  idealism  of  the  common 
mind,  filled  life  with  cruelties  and  jealous  exclusions, 
with  suicides  and  murders  and  secret  shames. 

X.  This  intrusion  of  economics  into  the  sexual  rela- 
tionships brought  about  the  revolution  in  the  status  of 
women.     As  soon  as  women  became  sexually  marketable, 
their  early  power  was  doomed.     First  came  what  I  hold 
to  have  been  the  transitional  stage  of  the  mother-age. 
This  will  explain  how  it  is  that,  even  where  matrilineal 
descent  is  in  full  force,  we  may  find  the  patriarchal  sub- 
jection of  women.      The  mother's  authority  has  been 
usurped  by  her  male  kindred,  usually  her  brother. 

XI.  We  have  noted  the  alien  position  of  the  father 


172          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

even  among  peoples  at  a  stage  of  development  where 
paternity  was  fully  established.  This  subjection,  which, 
perhaps,  would  not  be  felt  in  the  earlier  stage  of  mother- 
right,  must  have  been  increased  by  the  intrusion  of  the 
authority  of  the  wife's  male  kindred.  The  impulse  to 
dominate  by  virtue  of  strength  or  of  property  possessions 
has  manifested  itself  in  every  age.  As  society  advanced 
property  would  increase  in  value,  and  the  social  and 
political  significance  of  its  possession  would  also  increase. 
It  is  clear  that  such  a  position  of  insecurity  for  the 
husband  and  father  would  tend  to  become  impossible. 

XII.  One  way  of  escape — which  doubtless  took  place 
at  a  very  early  stage — was  by  the  capture  of  women. 
Side  by  side  with  the  customary  marriages  in  which  the 
husband  resided  in  the  home  of  the  wife,  without  rights 
and  subject  to  her  clan-kindred,  we  find  the  practice  of 
a  man  keeping  one  or  more  captive  wives  in  his  own 
home  for  his  use  and  service.  It  will  be  readily  seen 
that  the  special  rights  in  the  home  over  these  owned 
wives  (rights,  moreover,  that  were  recognised  by  the 
tribe)  would  come  to  be  desired  by  other  men.  But  the 
capture  of  wives  was  always  difficult  as  it  frequently  led 
to  a  quarrel  and  even  warfare  with  the  woman's  tribe,  and 
for  this  reason  was  never  widely  practised.  It  would, 
therefore,  be  necessary  for  another  way  of  escape  to  be 
found.  This  was  done  by  changing  the  conditions  of  the 
customary  marriage.  Nor  do  I  think  it  unlikely  that  such 
change  may  have  been  received  favourably  by  women. 
The  captive  wives  may  even  have  been  envied  by  the 
regular  wife.  An  arrangement  that  would  give  a  more 
individual  relationship  to  marriage  and  the  protection 


THE  TRANSITION   TO    FATHER-RIGHT     173 

of  a  husband  for  herself  and  the  children  of  their  union 
may  well  have  been  preferred  by  woman  to  her  position 
of  subjection  that  had  now  arisen  to  the  authority  of  her 
brother  or  other  male  relative.  The  alteration  from  the 
old  custom  may  thus  be  said  to  have  been  due,  in  part, 
to  the  interests  of  the  husband,  but  also,  in  part,  to  the 
inclination  of  the  wife. 

XIII.  The  change  was  gained  by  elopement,  by  simu- 
lated capture,  by  the  gift  or  exchange  of  women,  and 
by  the  payment  of  a  bride-price.     The  bride-price  came 
to  be  the  most  usual  custom,  gradually  displacing  the 
others.     As  we  have  seen,  it  was  often  regarded  as  a  con- 
dition, not  of  the  marriage  itself,  but  of  the  transfer  of 
the  wife  to  the  home  of  the  husband  and  of  the  children 
to  his  kin. 

XIV.  It  was  in  this  way,  for  economic  reasons,  and 
the  personal  needs  of  both  the  woman  and  the  man,  and 
not,  I  believe,  specially  through  the  fighting  propensities 
of  the  males,  and  certainly  not  by  any  unfair  domination 
or  tyranny  on  the  part  of  the  husband  that  the  position 
of  the  sexes  was  reversed. 

XV.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  to  woman  the  result  was 
no  less  far-reaching  and  disastrous.    She  had  become  the 
property  of  one  master,  residing  in  her  husband's  tribe, 
which  had  no  rights  or  duties  in  regard  to  her,  where  she 
was  a  stranger,  perhaps  speaking  a  different  language. 
And  her  children  kept  her  bound  to  this  alien  home  in 
a  much  closer  way  than  the  husband  could  ever  have 
been    bound   to   her   home   under   the   earlier   custom. 
Woman's  early  power  rested  in  her  organised  position 
among  her  own  kin  :  this  was  now  lost. 


174          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

XVI.  The  change  was  not  brought  about  quickly.    For 
long  the  mother's  influence  persisted  as  a  matter  of  habit. 
We  have  its  rather  empty  shadow  with  us  to-day. 

XVII.  But,  under  the  pressure  of  the  new  conditions, 
the  old  custom  of  tracing  descent  and  the  inheritance 
of  property  in  the  female  line  (so  favourable  to  women) 
died.     Mother-right  passed  away,  remaining  only  as  a 
tradition,  or  practised  in  isolated  cases  among  primitive 
peoples.     The  patriarchal  age,  which  still  endures,  suc- 
ceeded.    Women  became  slaves,  who  of  old  had  been 
dominant. 

One  final  word  more. 

The  opinion  that  the  subjection  of  women  arose  from 
male  mastery,  or  was  due  to  any  special  cruelty,  must  be 
set  aside.  To  me  the  history  of  the  mother-age  does 
not  teach  this.  I  believe  this  charge  could  not  have 
arisen,  at  all  events  it  would  not  have  persisted,  if  women, 
with  the  power  they  then  enjoyed,  had  not  desired  the 
gaining  of  a  closer  relationship  with  the  father  of  their 
children.  With  all  the  evils  that  father-right  has  brought 
to  woman,  we  have  got  to  remember  that  woman  owes 
the  individual  relation  of  the  man  to  herself  and  her 
children  to  the  patriarchal  system.  The  father's  right 
in  his  children  (which,  unlike  the  right  of  the  mother, 
was  not  founded  on  kinship,  but  rested  on  the  quite  differ- 
ent and  insecure  basis  of  property)  had  to  be  established. 
Without  this  being  done,  the  family  in  its  full  and  per- 
fect development  was  impossible.  We  women  need  to 
remember  this,  lest  bitterness  stains  our  sense  of  justice. 
It  may  be  that  progress  social  and  moral  could  not  have 
been  accomplished  otherwise;  that  the  cost  of  love's 


THE  TRANSITION  TO   FATHER-RIGHT     175 

development  has  been  the  enslavement  of  woman.  If 
so,  then  women  will  not,  in  the  long  account  of  Nature, 
have  lost  in  the  payment  of  the  price.  They  may  be 
(when  they  come  at  last  to  understand  the  truth)  better 
fitted  for  their  refound  freedom. 

Neither  mother-right  alone,  nor  father-right  alone,  can 
satisfy  the  new  ideals  of  the  true  relationship  of  the 
sexes.  The  spiritual  force,  slowly  unfolding,  that  has 
uplifted,  and  is  still  uplifting,  womanhood,  is  the  founda- 
tion of  woman's  claim  that  the  further  progress  of 
humanity  is  bound  up  with  her  restoration  to  a  position 
of  freedom  and  human  equality.  But  this  position  she 
must  not  take  from  man — that,  indeed,  would  be  a  step 
backwards.  No,  she  is  to  share  it  with  him,  and  this  for 
her  own  sake  and  for  his,  and,  more  than  all,  for  the  sake 
of  their  children  and  all  the  children  of  the  race. 

This  replacement  of  the  mother  side  by  side  with  the 
father  in  the  home  and  in  the  larger  home  of  the  State 
is  the  true  work  of  the  Woman's  Movement. 


CONTENTS   OF    CHAPTER   VII 

WOMAN'S  POSITION  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVILISATIONS  OF 
ANTIQUITY 

I. — In  Egypt 

The  importance  of  estimating  woman's  position  in  the  great  civilisations 
of  the  ancient  world — The  Egyptian  civilisation — Women  more 
free  and  more  honoured  than  in  any  country  to-day — The  account 
given  by  Herodotus — The  Egyptian  woman  never  confined  to  the 
home — No  restraint  upon  her  actions — She  entered  into  commerce 
in  her  own  right  and  made  contracts  for  her  own  benefit — Abundant 
material  in  proof  of  the  high  status  of  Egyptian  women — Marriage 
contracts — Their  importance  and  interest — Numerous  examples — 
The  proprietary  rights  of  the  wife — An  early  period  of  mother-rule — 
Property  originally  in  the  hands  of  women — The  marriage  con- 
tracts a  development  of  the  early  system — The  Egyptians  solved 
the  difficult  problem  of  the  fusion  of  mother-right  with  father- 
right — The  statement  of  Dioderus  that  among  the  Egyptians  the 
woman  rules  over  the  man — The  conditions  of  marriage  dependent 
on  the  birth  of  children — M.  Paturet's  view  the  Egyptian  woman 
the  equal  of  man — The  high  status  of  woman  proved  by  the  fact  that 
her  child  was  never  illegitimate — The  position  of  the  mother  secure 
in  every  relationship  between  the  sexes — This  made  possible  by  the 
free  conditions  of  the  marriage  contracts — Polygamy  allowed — 
This  practice  in  Egypt  very  different  from  polygamy  in  a  patri- 
archal society — The  husband  a  privileged  guest  in  the  home  of  the 
wife — The  high  ideal  of  the  domestic  relationship — Illustrations 
from  the  inscriptions  of  the  monuments — Reasons  which  explain 
this  civilised  and  human  organisation — The  Egyptians  an  agri- 
cultural and  a  conservative  people — They  were  alco  a  pacific  race — 
The  significance  of  the  Maxims  of  the  Moralists — Honour  to  the  wife 
and  the  mother  strongly  insisted  on — The  health  and  character  of 
the  Egyptian  mother — Some  reflections  in  the  Egyptian  Galleries 
of  the  British  Museum. 

II. — In  Babylon 

Traces  of  mother-right  in  primitive  Babylon — The  honour  paid  to 
women — The  position  of  women  in  later  Babylonian  history, 
though  still  at  an  early  period — Their  rights  more  circumscribed — 
The  marriage  code  of  Hammurabi — Polygamy  permitted,  though 
restricted,  by  the  code — The  exacting  conditions  of  divorce — The 
position  of  the  wife  as  subject  to  her  husband — The  later  Neo- 
Babylonian  periods — The  position  of  women  continuously  im- 
proving— They  obtain  a  position  equal  in  law  with  their  husbands — 
Their  freedom  in  all  social  relations — They  conduct  business  trans- 
actions in  their  own  right — Illustrations  from  the  contract  tablets — 
Remarks  and  conclusion. 

N  I77 


178          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 


III. — In  Greece 

Traces  of  mother-right  traditions  in  Greek  literature  and  history — The 
women  of  the  Homeric  period — Dangers  arising  from  the  patri- 
archal subjection  of  women — Illustrations  and  various  reflections — 
Historic  Greece — The  social  organisation  of  Sparta — Their  marriage 
system — The  laws  of  Lycurgus — The  freedom  of  the  Spartan  girls — 
The  wise  care  for  the  health  of  the  race — Plato's  criticism  of  the 
Spartan  system — He  accuses  the  women  of  ruling  their  husbands — 
The  Athenian  women — Their  subjection  under  the  strict  patri- 
archal rule — The  insistence  on  chastity — Reasons  for  this — The 
degraded  position  of  the  wife — The  hetairee — They  the  only  edu- 
cated women  in  Athens — Aspasia — She  leads  the  movement  to 
raise  the  position  of  the  Athenian  women — Plato's  estimate  of 
women — Remarks  on  the  sexual  penalties  for  women  that  are  always 
found  under  a  strict  patriarchal  regime — The  ideal  relationship 
between  the  wife  and  the  husband — Euripides  voices  the  sorrows 
of  women — He  foreshadows  their  coming  triumph. 

IV. — In  Rome 

Little  known  of  the  position  of  women  in  Rome  in  prehistoric  times — 
Indications  of  an  early  period  of  mother-rule — The  patriarchal 
system  formerly  established  when  Roman  history  opens — The 
Roman  marriage  law — The  woman  regarded  as  the  property  first 
of  her  father  and  afterwards  of  her  husband — The  patrician 
marriage  of  confarreatio — The  form  known  as  coemptio — Marriage 
by  usus — The  inequality  of  divorce — The  subjection  of  the  woman — 
The  terrible  right  of  the  husband's  manus — The  way  of  escape — 
The  development  of  the  early  marriage  by  usus — The  new  free 
marriage  by  consent — Free  divorce — A  revolution  in  the  position 
of  women — The  patriarchal  rule  of  women  dwindled  to  a  mere 
thread — They  gained  increasingly  greater  liberty  until  at  last  they 
gained  complete  freedom — The  public  entry  of  women  into  the 
affairs  of  State — Illustrations  to  show  the  fine  use  made  by  the 
Roman  matrons  of  their  freedom — An  examination  into  the  sup- 
posed licentiousness  of  Roman  women — This  opinion  cannot  be 
accepted — The  effect  of  Christianity — The  view  of  Sir  Henry 
Maine — Some  concluding  remarks  on  the  position  of  women  in  the 
four  great  civilisations  examined  in  this  chapter. 


CHAPTER   VII 

WOMAN'S  POSITION  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVILISATIONS 
OF  ANTIQUITY 

I. — In  Egypt 

"  If  we  consider  the  status  of  woman  in  the  great  empires  of  antiquity, 
we  find  on  the  whole  that  in  their  early  stage,  the  stage  of  growth,  as 
well  as  in  their  final  stage,  the  stage  of  fruition,  women  tend  to  occupy 
a  favourable  position,  while  in  their  middle  stage,  usually  the  stage 
of  predominating  military  organisation  on  a  patriarchal  basis,  women 
usually  occupy  a  less  favourable  position.  This  cyclic  movement  seems 
to  be  almost  a  natural  law  of  development  of  great  social  groups." — 
HAVELOCK  ELLIS. 

THE  civilisations  through  which  I  am  now  going  to 
follow  the  history  of  woman,  in  so  far  as  they  offer  any 
special  features  of  interest  to  our  inquiry  into  woman's 
character  and  her  true  place  in  the  social  order,  belong 
to  the  great  civilisations  of  the  ancient  world,  civilisa- 
tions, moreover,  that  have  deeply  influenced  human 
culture.  It  forms  the  second  part  of  our  historical  in- 
vestigation. There  can  be  no  doubt  of  its  interest  to 
us,  for  if  we  can  prove  that  women  have  exercised 
unquestioned  and  direct  authority  in  the  family  and  in 
the  State,  not  only  among  primitive  peoples,  but  in  stable 
civilisations  of  vital  culture,  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to 
answer  those  who  wish  to  set  limits  to  women's  present 
activities. 

It  is  necessary  to  enter  into  this  inquiry  with  caution  : 
the  difficulties  before  me  are  very  great.    Again,  it  is 

N2  179 


180          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

not  in  any  scarcity  of  evidence,  but  in  its  superabundance 
that  the  trouble  rests.  It  is  hard  to  condense  the  social 
habits  of  peoples  into  a  few  dozen  pages.  Nothing 
would  be  easier  than  from  the  mass  of  material  available 
to  pile  up  facts  in  furnishing  a  picture  of  the  high  status 
of  woman  that  would  unnerve  any  upholders  of  female 
subordination.  It  is  just  possible,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  interpret  these  facts  from  a  fixed  point  of  thought,  and 
then  to  argue  that,  in  spite  of  her  power,  woman  was 
still  regarded  as  the  inferior  of  man.1  I  wish  to  do 
neither.  It  is  my  purpose  to  outline  the  domestic  rela- 
tionships and  the  family  law  and  customs  as  they  existed 
in  Egypt  and  in  Babylon,  in  Greece  and  in  Rome;  to 
touch  the  features  of  social  life  only  in  so  far  as  they 
illustrate  this,  and  so  to  discover  to  what  extent  the 
mother  was  still  regarded  as  the  natural  transmitter  of 
property  and  head  of  the  household.  The  subject  is  an 
immensely  complicated  and  seductive  one,  so  that  I  must 
keep  strictly  to  the  path  set  by  this  inquiry. 

Let  us  turn  first  to  Egypt. 

We  have  so  rich  a  collection  of  the  remains  of  the 
ancient  Egyptian  civilisation,  and  so  careful  and  indus- 
trious a  scholarship  has  been  given  to  interpret  them, 
that  we  can  with  confidence  reconstruct  in  outline  the 
legal  status  and  proprietary  rights  enjoyed  by  women, 
which  gave  them  a  position  more  free  and  more  honoured 
than  they  have  in  any  country  of  the  world  to-day.  This 
is  not  an  overestimate  of  the  facts.  The  security  of  her 
proprietary  rights  made  the  Egyptian  woman  the  legal 

1  This  is  the  position  taken  up,  for  instance,  by  Letourneau,  Evolution 
of  Marriage,  p.  176. 


IN  EGYPT  181 

head  of  the  household,  she  inherited  equally  with  her 
brothers,  and  had  full  control  of  her  own  property.  She 
was  juridically  the  equal  of  man,  having  the  same  rights, 
with  the  same  freedom  of  action,  and  being  honoured  in 
the  same  way. 

The  position  of  woman  in  Egypt  is,  indeed,  full  of 
surprises  to  the  modern  believer  in  woman's  subjection. 
Herodotus,  who  was  a  keen  observer,  was  the  first  to 
record  his  astonishment.  He  writes — 

"  They  have  established  laws  and  customs  opposite  for  the  most 
part  to  those  of  the  rest  of  mankind.  With  them  the  women  go 
to  market  and  traffic ;  the  men  stay  at  home  and  weave.  .  .  .  The 
men  carry  burdens  on  their  heads,  the  women  on  their  shoulders. 
.  .  .  The  boys  are  never  forced  to  maintain  their  parents  unless 
they  wish  to  do  so,  the  girls  are  obliged  to,  even  if  they  do  not 
wish  it."  1 

There  is  probably  some  exaggeration  in  this  account, 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  wide  activities  of  the  free 
Egyptian  women  were  never  confined  to  the  home.  An 
important  part  was  taken  by  her  in  industrial  and  com- 
mercial life.  In  these  relations  and  in  social  intercourse 
it  is  allowed  on  all  hands  woman's  position  was  remark- 
ably free.2  The  records  of  the  monuments  show  her  to 
have  been  as  actively  concerned  in  all  the  affairs  of  her 
day,  war  alone  excepted,  as  her  father,  her  husband,  or 
her  sons.3  No  restraint  was  placed  upon  her  actions, 
she  appears  eating  and  also  drinking  freely,  and  taking 
her  part  in  equal  enjoyment  with  men  in  social  scenes 
and  religious  ceremonies.  She  was  able  to  enter  into 

1  Herodotus,  Bk.  II.  p.  35. 

*  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  I.  p.  189. 

*  Maspero,  Preface  to  Queens  of  Egypt,  by  J.  R.  Buttles,  q.  v. 


182          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

commerce  in  her  own  right  and  to  make  contracts  for 
her  own  benefit.  She  could  bring  actions,  and  even 
plead  in  the  courts.  She  practised  the  art  of  medicine. 
As  priestess  she  had  authority  in  the  temples.  Fre- 
quently as  queen  she  was  the  highest  in  the  land.  One 
of  the  greatest  monarchs  of  Egypt  was  Hatschepsut,1 
B.C.  1550.  "The  mighty  one!"  "Conqueror  of  all 
Lands !  "  Queen  in  her  own  right  by  the  will  of  her 
father,  Thothmes  I. 

The  material  in  proof  of  this  high  status  of  Egyptian 
women  is  abundant.  It  consists  partly  of  the  descrip- 
tions of  Greek  travellers,  partly  of  the  numerous  and 
interesting  marriage  contracts,  and  partly  of  inscriptions 
and  passages  in  the  writings  of  the  moralists,  all  of  which 
testify  to  the  beautiful  and  happy  family  relationships 
and  usual  honour  in  which  women  were  held,  which  is 
further  illustrated  by  incidents  in  the  ancient  stories. 
Of  these  the  marriage  contracts  are  the  most  important 
for  our  purpose. 

The  fullest  information  relates  to  the  latest  period  of 
independent  Egyptian  history,  when  the  position  of 
women  stood  highest,  but  some  of  the  contracts  reach 
back  to  the  time  of  King  Bocchoris,  and  there  are  a  few 
of  an  even  earlier  date.  I  wish  that  I  had  space  to  quote 
some  of  these  marriage  contracts  in  full :  they  are  very 
instructive,  and  open  out  many  paths  of  new  suggestion.3 

1  For  an  account  of  the  reign  of  Hatschepsut,  as  well  as  of  the  other 
queens  who  ruled  in  Egypt,  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  the  excellent 
and  careful  work  of  Miss  Buttles.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the  temple 
built  by  Queen  Hatschepsut  is  one  of  the  most  famous  and  beautiful 
monuments  of  ancient  Egypt.  On  the  walls  are  recorded  the  history 
of  her  prosperous  reign,  also  the  private  events  of  her  life  :  "  Ra  hath 
selected  her  for  protecting  Egypt  and  for  rousing  bravery  among  men." 

a  We  owe  our  knowledge  of  the  Egyptian  marriage  contracts  chiefly 


IN   EGYPT  183 

I  would  commend  their  study  to  all  those  who  are  ques- 
tioning the  institution  of  marriage  as  it  stands  to-day 
on  the  rights  of  the  patriarchal  family  system,  by  which 
the  woman  is  considered  the  inferior,  and  submits  her- 
self and  is  subordinate  to  the  man  as  the  ruler  of  the 
family.  The  issue  really  rests  at  its  root  upon  this — 
is  the  mother  or  the  father  to  be  regarded  as  the  natural 
transmitter  of  property  and  head  of  the  family.  Our 
decision  here  will  affect  our  outlook  on  the  entire  relation 
of  the  sexes.  The  Egyptians  decided  on  the  right  of  the 
mother.  Their  marriage  contracts  seem  to  have  been 
entirely  in  favour  of  women.  There  was  no  sale  of  the 
bride  by  her  parents,  but  the  bride-price  went  to  her; 
her  own  property  also  remained  in  her  own  charge  and 
was  at  her  own  disposal.  The  husband  stipulates  in  the 
contracts  how  much  he  will  give  as  a  yearly  allowance 
for  her  support,  and  the  entire  property  of  the  husband 
is  pledged  as  security  for  these  payments,  whilst  the  wife 
is  further  protected  by  a  dowry l  or  charge  on  the 
husband,  to  be  paid  to  her  in  the  event  of  his  sending 
her  away. 

It  will  readily  be  seen  how  advantageous  these  pro- 
prietary rights  must  have  been  to  the  wife.     She  was 

to  M.  Revillout,  whose  works  should  be  consulted.  See  also  Paturet 
(the  pupil  of  Revillout),  La  Condition  juridique  de  la  femme  dans  I'ancienne 
Egypte  ;  Nietzold,  Die  Ehe  in  Aegypten;  Greenfel,  Greek  Papyri  ;  Ameli- 
ncau.  La  Morale  Egyptienne  ;  Miiller,  Liebespoesie  der  alten  Aegypten, 


pp.  204- 
Evolution,  Vol.  I.  p.  182,  et  seq. 

1  Hobhouse  regards  this  dowry  as  being  the  original  property  of  the 
wife  in  the  forms  of  the  bride-price.  Revillout  and  Miiller  accept  the 
much  more  probable  view,  that  the  dowry  was  fictitious,  and  was 
really  a  charge  on  the  property  of  the  husband  to  be  paid  to  the  wife  if 
he  sent  her  away. 


184          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

able  to  claim  either  the  fidelity  of  her  husband  or  freedom 
for  herself  to  leave  him — and  in  some  cases  for  both 
together,  her  property  being  secured  to  her  and  her 
children.  In  one  contract  by  which  the  husband  gives 
his  wife  one-third  of  all  his  property,  present  and  to 
come,  he  values  the  movables  she  brought  with  her,  and 
promises  her  the  equivalent  in  silver.  "  If  thou  stayest, 
thou  stayest  with  them,  if  thou  goest  away,  thou  goest 
away  with  them."  The  importance  of  this  right  of  free 
separation  to  women  can  hardly  be  over-estimated. 
Nietzold  says  the  wife  has  absolutely  nothing  to  lose, 
even  when  she  is  the  guilty  party.2  Some  of  the 
marriage  contracts  are  even  more  favourable  to  women ; 
in  these  the  husband  literally  endows  his  wife  with  all 
his  worldly  goods,  "  stipulating  only  that  she  is  to  main- 
tain him  while  living,  and  provide  for  his  burial  when 
dead."  M.  Paturet  distinguishes  two  forms  of 
marriage  settlements,  one  which  secures  to  the  wife  an 
annual  pension  of  specified  amount — usually  one-third 
of  the  property  of  the  husband — and  the  other,  probably 
the  older  custom,  which  established  a  complete  com- 
munity of  goods.  The  earlier  contracts  are  much  less 
detailed,  due  probably  to  the  fact  that  the  position  of 
the  established  wife  was  then  fixed  by  custom ;  but  there 
seems  no  doubt  that  the  equal  lawful  wife,  she  whose 
proper  title  is  "lady  of  the  house,"  was  also  joint  ruler 
and  mistress  of  the  family  heritage.4  There  is  a  very 

1  Paturet,  La  Condition  juridique  de  la  fentme  dans  I'ancienne  £gypte, 
p.  69. 

8  Nietzold ,  Die  Ehe  in  Aegypten,  p.  79. 

3  Etudes  tgyptologiques,  livre  XIII.  pp.  230,  294 ;  quoted  by  Simcox, 
op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  210. 

*  Simcox,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  204. 


IN   EGYPT  185 

curious  early  contract  of  the  time  of  Darius  I,  in  which 
the  usual  stipulation  of  latter  contracts  are  reversed, 
the  wife  speaking  of  the  man  being  established  as  her 
husband,  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  a  sum  of  money 
as  dowry,  and  undertaking  that  if  she  deserts  or  disposes 
of  him,  a  third  part  of  all  her  goods,  present  and  to 
come,  shall  be  forfeited  to  him.1 

The  high  honour,  freedom  and  proprietary  rights 
enjoyed  by  the  Egyptian  wife  can  only  be  explained  as 
being  traceable  to  an  early  period  of  mother-right.  Here 
the  ancient  privileges  of  women  have  persisted,  not  as 
an  empty  form,  but  would  seem  to  have  been  adopted 
because  of  their  advantage  in  the  family  relationship, 
and  been  incorporated  with  father-right.  This  would 
account  for  the  last-named  contract.  Its  very  ancient 
date  seems  clearly  to  point  to  this.  It  is  unlikely  that, 
if  it  were  an  exceptional  form,  it  should  have  chanced 
to  be  one  of  the  very  few  early  contracts  that  have  been 
preserved.2  It  would  rather  seem  that  property  was 
originally  entirely  in  the  hands  of  women,  as  is  usual 
under  the  matriarchal  system.  The  Egyptian  marriage 
law  was  simply  a  development  of  this,  enforcing  by 
agreement  what  would  occur  naturally  under  the  earlier 
custom.  The  interests  of  the  children's  inheritance  was 
the  chief  object  of  the  settlement  of  property  on  the  wife. 
In  the  earlier  stage,  the  daughter  inheriting  property 
from  her  parents,  would  marry — the  husband  would  then 
become  its  joint  administrator,  but  not  its  owner;  it  would 

1  Simcox.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  pp.  210-211,  citing  Revillout,  Cours  de 
droit^p.  285. 

1  This  is  the  view  of  Simcox,  op.  cit.,  pp.  210-211. 


186          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

pass  by  custom  to  the  children  with  the  eldest  as  adminis- 
trator, but  if  the  wife  dismissed  the  husband,  as  under 
this  system  she  could  and  often  did,  she  would  of  right 
retain  the  family  property  in  control  for  the  children.1 
As  society  advanced  this  older  custom  would  tend  to 
break  up  in  favour  of  individual  ownership,  property 
would  come  to  belong  to  the  husband  and  father,  and 
it  would  then  be  necessary  to  ensure  the  position  of  the 
wife  and  children  by  contract.  The  Egyptian  marriage 
may  thus  be  regarded  as  a  development  of  the  individual 
relationship  arising  from  father-right  modified  to  con- 
form with  the  mother-right  custom  of  transmitting  pro- 
perty through  the  woman.  Under  the  earlier  system  the 
inheritance  of  the  husband  would  pass  to  the  children 
of  his  sister,  and  not  to  his  own  children.  The  contract 
was,  therefore,  made  to  prevent  this.  The  husband's 
property  was  passed  over  to  the  wife  (at  first  entirely 
and  later  in  part)  to  secure  its  inheritance  by  the  children 
of  the  marriage.  Hence  the  formula  common  to  these 
contracts  by  which  the  husband  declares  to  the  wife,  "  My 
eldest  son,  thy  eldest  son,  shall  be  the  heir  to  all  my 
property  present  and  to  come."  The  only  difference  to 
the  earlier  custom  was  the  prominence  given  to  the  eldest 
child  (a  son)  in  the  contract. 

This  gift  by  the  husband  of  his  property  to  the  wife, 
which  made  her  a  joint  partner  with  him  in  all  the  family 
transactions,  while  at  the  same  time  she  retained  com- 
plete control  over  her  own  property,  clearly  placed  the 
woman  and  her  children  in  the  same  position  of  security 
as  she  had  held  during  the  mother-age ;  and  added  to  this 

1  Hobhouse,  Vol.  I.  p.  185  (Note). 


IN  EGYPT  187 

she  gained  the  individual  protection  and  support  of  the 
father  in  the  family  relationship.  Doubtless  it  was  this 
freedom  and  right  over  property,  which  explains  the 
frequent  cases  in  which  the  Egyptian  women  conducted 
business  transactions,  and  also  their  active  participation 
in  the  administration  of  the  social  organisation.  Equal 
partners  with  their  husbands  in  the  administration  of  the 
home,  they  became  partners  with  men  in  the  wider 
administration  of  the  State.  It  was  in  such  wise  way 
that  the  Egyptians  arranged  the  difficult  problem  of  the 
fusion  of  mother-right  with  father-right. 

One  result  of  these  marriage  contracts,  giving  appar- 
ently great  power  to  the  wife,  arose  out  of  the  mortgage 
on  the  husband's  property  as  security  for  the  wife's 
settlement;  her  consent  became  necessary  to  all  his  acts. 
Thus  it  is  usual  for  the  husband's  deeds  to  be  endorsed 
by  the  wife,  while  he  did  not  endorse  hers.  In  some 
cases  the  wife's  consent  seems  to  have  been  necessary 
even  in  the  case  of  the  initial  mortgage,  when  the  only 
possible  explanation  is  that  the  wife  was  regarded  as  co- 
proprietor  with  the  husband,  and  therefore  had  to  be 
party  to  any  act  disposing  of  the  joint  estate.1 

Such  a  custom  was  apparently  so  wholly  in  favour  of 
the  wife,  reversing  the  customary  position  of  the  man 
and  the  woman  in  the  marriage  partnership,  that  in  the 
light  of  these  contracts  we  understand  the  statement  of 
Diodorus,  when  he  says  that  "  among  the  Egyptians  the 
woman  rules  over  the  man  " ;  though  plainly  he  has  not 
understood  their  true  significance,  when  he  goes  on  to 

1  Les  obligations  en  droit  egyptien,  p.  82 ;  quoted  by  Simcox,  op.  cit., 
Vol.  I.  pp.  209-210. 


188          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

say  that  "  it  is  stipulated  between  married  couples,  by 
the  terms  of  the  dowry-contract  that  "  the  man  shall  obey 
the  woman." 

If  the  view  is  accepted,  as  I  think  it  must  be,  that 
these  contracts  were  made  to  add  the  advantages  of 
father-right  to  the  natural  privileges  of  mother-right,  and 
thus  to  secure  the  enjoyment  of  the  family  property  to 
all  its  members,  it  will  become  evident  that,  however 
surprising  such  an  agreement  might  seem  from  the 
one-sided  patriarchal  view  (which  always  accepts  the 
subjection  of  the  woman),  it  was  entirely  a  wise  and  just 
arrangement.  It  was  certainly  one  that  was  entered  into 
voluntarily  by  both  partners  of  the  marriage ;  there  was 
no  compulsion  of  law.  All  the  evidence  that  has  come 
down  to  us  is  witness  to  the  success  in  practice  of  these 
marriage  contracts.  No  other  nation  has  yet  developed 
a  family  relationship  so  perfect  in  its  working  as  the 
Egyptians.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  It  was  based 
on  the  equal  freedom  and  responsibility  of  the  mother 
with  the  father.  There  was  no  question,  it  seems  to  me, 
of  one  sex  ruling  or  obeying  the  other,  rather  it  was 
the  co-operation  of  the  two  for  the  welfare  of  both  and 
of  the  children. 

1  Diodorus,  bk.  i.  p.  27.  The  whole  passage  is  :  "  Contrary  to 
the  received  usage  of  other  nations  the  laws  permit  the  Egyptians  to 
marry  their  sisters,  after  the  example  of  Osiris  and  Isis.  The  latter, 
in  fact,  having  cohabited  with  her  brother  Osiris,  swore,  after  his 
death,  never  to  surfer  the  approach  of  any  man,  pursued  the  murderer, 
governed  according  to  the  laws,  and  loaded  men  with  benefits.  All 
this  explains  why  the  queen  receives  more  power  and  respect  than  the 
king,  and  why,  among  private  individuals,  the  woman  rules  over  the 
man,  and  that  it  is  stipulated  between  married  couples  by  the  terms  of 
the  dowry-contract  that  the  man  shall  obey  the  woman."  The 
brother-sister  marriages,  referred  to  by  Diodorus,  which  were  common, 
especially  in  early  Egyptian  history,  are  further  witness  to  the  persistence 
among  them  of  the  customs  of  the  mother-age. 


IN  IEGYPT  139 

So  far  we  have  dealt  only  with  the  position  of  the 
established  wife.  All  the  written  marriage  contracts 
refer  to  the  "  taking  "  and  "  establishing  "  a  wife  as  two 
distinct  steps,  and  in  some  cases  the  second  stage,  which 
seems  to  have  conveyed  the  proprietary  rights,  was  not 
taken  until  after  the  birth  of  children.  There  would 
thus  be  wives  not  necessarily  holding  the  position  of 
"  lady  of  the  house,"  but  capable  of  being  raised  to  such 
rank  by  later  contract.1  It  is  probable,  as  M.  Revillout 
suggests,2  that  "  the  taking  to  wife  "  was  a  comparatively 
informal  matter,  but  needing  ratification  by  contract  for 
any  lasting  establishment,  which  commonly  would  be 
done  after  the  birth  of  a  child  to  ensure  the  rights  of 
the  father's  inheritance,  passing  through  the  mother  to 
the  children.  All  the  evidence  is  in  favour  of  this  wise 
arrangement.  There  are  many  examples  of  contracts 
being  entered  into  by  the  husband  for  the  benefit  of  a 
woman,  who  had  been  "with  him  as  a  wife  to  him." 
Relations  between  the  sexes  of  an  even  less  binding 
character  than  this  were  not  ignored.3  It  seems  clear 
that  little  regard  was  paid  to  pre-nuptial  chastity  for 
women,  and  in  no  marriage  contract  is  any  stress  laid 
on  virginity,  which,  as  Havelock  Ellis 4  says,  clearly 
indicates  the  absence  of  any  idea  of  women  as  property. 
"  It  is  the  glory  of  Egyptian  morality  to  have  been  the 
first  to  express  the  dignity  of  woman." 

M.  Paturet  takes  the  view  that  it  was  not  so  much  as 
the  mother,  but  as  woman,  and  being  the  equal  of  man, 

1  Simcox.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  205.          *  Revue  (gyptologique,  I.  p.  no. 

•  Revillout,  Cours  de  droit,  Vol.  I.  p.  222. 

*  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  393. 

1  Am<Hincuu,  La  morale  egyptienne,  p.  194. 


190          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

that  the  Egyptians  honoured  their  women.  Perhaps  the 
truth  rather  is  that  there  was  no  separation  between  the 
woman  and  the  mother.  This  is  the  view  that  I  would 
take ;  to  me  it  is  the  right  and  natural  one.  But  be  this 
as  it  may,  Egyptian  morality  placed  first  the  rights  of 
the  mother.  No  religious  or  moral  superiority  seems  to 
have  attached  to  the  established  wife.  Even  when  there 
had  been  no  betrothal,  and  no  intention  of  marriage,  law 
or  custom  recognises  the  claim  of  any  mother  of  children 
to  some  kind  of  provision  at  their  father's  expense. 
"  Nothing  proves  the  high  status  of  woman  so  clearly  as 
this :  her  child  was  never  illegitimate ;  illegitimacy  was 
not  recognised  even  in  the  case  of  a  slave  woman's 
child."  * 

There  is  a  curious  deed  of  the  Ptolemaic  period  by 
which  a  man  cedes  to  a  woman  a  number  of  slaves ;  and 
—in  the  same  breath — recognises  her  as  his  lawful  wife, 
and  declares  her  free  not  to  consider  him  as  her  husband.2 
A  byssus  worker  at  the  factory  of  Amon  promises  to  the 
wife  he  is  about  to  establish,  one-third  of  all  his  acquisi- 
tions thenceforward  :  "  my  eldest  son,  thy  eldest  son, 
among  the  children  born  to  thee  previously  and  those 
thou  shalt  bear  to  me  in  future  shall  be  master  of  all  I 
possess  now  or  shall  hereafter  acquire."  Even  when 
such  arrangements  were  not  entered  into  voluntarily, 
public  opinion  seems  always  to  have  been  in  favour  of 
the  woman.  A  case  is  recorded  where  four  villagers 
of  the  town  of  Arsinoe  pledged  themselves  to  the  priest, 
scribe,  and  mayor  that  a  fellow  villager  of  theirs  will 

1  Ellis,  citing  Donaldson,  Woman,  p.  196.     This  is  also  the  opinion 
of  Muller. 

*  Revillout,  Revue  tgyptologique,  Vol.  I.  p.  113. 


IN  EGYPT  191 

become  the  friend  of  the  woman  who  has  been  as  his 
wife,  and  will  love  her  as  a  woman  ought  to  be  loved.1 

Most  significant  of  all  is  the  well-known  precept  of 
Petah  Hotep,  which  refers  to  the  expected  conduct  of  a 
man  to  a  prostitute  or  outcast — 

"  If  thou  makest  a  woman  ashamed,  wanton  of  heart,  whom  her 
fellow  townspeople  know  to  be  under  two  laws  "  (i.  e.  in  an  am- 
biguous position),  "  be  kind  to  her  for  a  season,  send  her  not  away, 
let  her  have  food  to  eat.  The  wantonness  of  her  heart  appreciateth 
guidance." 

I  know  of  nothing  finer  than  this  wide  understanding 
of  the  ties  of  sex.  It  is  an  essential  part  of  morality, 
as  I  understand  it,  that  it  accepts  responsibility,  not 
alone  in  the  regular  and  permanent  relationships  between 
one  man  and  one  woman,  but  also  in  those  that  are 
temporary  and  are  even  considered  base.  Only  in  this 
way  can  the  human  passions  be  unified  with  love. 

The  freedom  of  the  Egyptian  marriage  made  this 
possible.  Law,  at  least  as  we  understand  it,  did  not 
interfere  with  the  domestic  relationships;  there  was  no 
one  fixed  rule  that  must  be  followed.  Marriage  was 
a  matter  of  mutual  agreement  by  contract.  All  that  was 
required  (and  this  was  enforced  by  custom  and  by  public 
opinion)  was  that  the  position  of  the  woman  and  the 
children  was  made  secure.  Each  party  entered  on  the 
marriage  without  any  constraint,  and  each  party  could 
cancel  the  contract  and  thereby  the  marriage.  No  legal 
judgment  was  required  for  divorce.  It  is  a  significant 
fact  that  in  all  the  documents  cancelling  the  marriage 
contracts  that  have  come  down  to  us,  no  mention  is  made 

1  Simcox,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  207. 


192          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

of  the  reason  which  led  to  the  annulling  of  the  contract, 
only  in  one  case  it  is  suggested  that  "  some  evil  daimon  " 
may  be  at  the  bottom  of  it.1 

Polygamy  was  allowed  in  Egypt,  though,  as  in  all 
polygamous  countries,  its  practice  was  confined  to  the 
rich.  This  has  been  thought  by  some  to  exclude  the 
idea  of  the  woman's  power  in  the  family.2  But  such  an 
opinion  seems  to  me  to  arise  from  a  want  of  understand- 
ing of  the  Egyptian  conception  of  the  sexual  tie.  Under 
polygamy  each  wife  had  a  house,  her  proprietary  rights 
and  those  of  her  children  were  established,  the  husband 
visiting  her  there  as  a  privileged  guest  on  equal  footing.3 
This  is  very  different  from  polygamy  in  a  patriarchal 
society,  and  would  carry  with  it  no  social  dishonour  to 
the  woman.  It  would  seem,  too,  in  later  Egyptian 
history  that  polygamy,  though  legal  in  theory,  in  practice 
died  out,  the  fidelity  of  the  husband,  as  we  have  seen, 
being  claimed  by  the  wife  in  the  conditions  of  the 
marriage  contract.4 

That  the  Egyptians  had  a  high  ideal  of  the  domestic 
relations — and  had  this,  let  it  be  remembered,  more  than 
four  thousand  years  ago — is  abundantly  illustrated  by 
their  inscriptions.  In  one  epitaph  of  the  Hykos  period, 
the  speaker,  who  boasts  a  family  of  sixty  children,  says 
of  himself,  "  I  loved  my  father,  I  honoured  my  mother, 
my  brothers  and  my  sisters  loved  me."  The  com- 
monest formula,  which  continued  in  use  as  long  as 

1  Donaldson,  Woman,  pp.  244-245,  citing  Nietzold,  p.  79. 
*  Letourneau  (Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  1 76)  takes  this  view. 
8  This  is,  of  course,  a  survival  of  the  old  matriarchal  custom. 
4  Hobhouse,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  L.  pp.  5-186.     Herodotus  (Bk.  II.  p.  42) 
states  that  many  Egyptians,  like  the  Greeks,  had  adopted  monogamy. 
6  Burgsch,  Hist.,  vol.  I.  p.  262,  quoted  by  Simcox. 


IN   EGYPT  198 

Egyptian  civilisation  survived,  was  one  describing  the 
deceased  as  "  loving  his  father,  reverencing  his  mother, 
and  being  beloved  by  his  brothers,"  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  sentiment  represented  thfe  maturest  con- 
victions of  the  Egyptians  as  to  the  sentiments  necessary 
for  the  felicitous  working  of  the  family  relationships.1 
It  is,  indeed,  significant  to  find  this  reversal  of  the  usual 
sentiments  towards  the  father  and  the  mother — the 
former  to  be  loved  and  the  latter  to  be  reverenced.  It 
would  seem  as  if  "they  assumed  that  fathers  would  be 
sufficiently  reverenced  if  they  were  loved,  and  mothers 
loved  if  they  were  honoured."  How  true  here  is  the 
understanding  of  affection  and  of  the  sexes ! 

If  we  pause  for  a  moment  to  seek  the  reason  why  the 
Egyptians  had,  as  Herodotus  so  strikingly  states,  estab- 
lished in  their  domestic  relationships  laws  and  customs 
different  from  the  rest  of  mankind — the  answer  is  easy 
to  find.  The  Egyptians  were  an  agricultural  and  a 
conservative  people.  They  were  also  a  pacific  race. 
They  would  seem  not  to  have  believed  in  that  illusion 
of  younger  races — the  glory  of  warfare.  I  have  seen  it 
stated  that  in  battle  they  were  known  for  the  habit  of 
running  away.  This  may,  of  course,  be  thought  to  count 
against  them  as  a  people.  It  depends  entirely  on  the 
point  of  view  that  is  taken.  But  if,  as  I  believe,  the 
fighting  activities  belong  to  an  early  and  truly  primitive 
stage  of  social  development,  then  the  view  would  be 
very  different.  Races  begin  with  the  building  up  of 

1  Simcox,  Vol.  I.  p.  198-199.   I  take  this  opportunity  of  acknowledging 
the  help  I  have  received  from  this  writer's  careful  and  interesting 
chapter  on  "  Domestic  Relationships  and   Family  Law  "  among  the 
Egyptians. 
O 


194          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

society,  then  there  follows  the  period  of  warfare — the 
patriarchal  period  which  leads  on  to  a  later  stage,  much 
nearer  in  its  working  to  the  first — a  final  period,  as 
Havelock  Ellis  says,  "  the  stage  of  fruition."  Woman's 
place  and  opportunity  for  the  true  expression  of  the 
powers  that  are  hers  belong  to  the  first  and  last  of  these 
stages;  in  the  middle  stage  she  must  tend  to  fall  into  a 
position  of  more  or  less  complete  dependence  on  the 
fighting  male.  Here  is,  I  think,  the  explanation  of 
the  power  and  privilege  of  the  Egyptian  women.  The 
Egyptians,  due  to  their  pacific  and  conservative  tem- 
perament, seem  to  have  escaped  the  patriarchal  stage, 
and  passed  on  from  the  first  to  final  stage.  Through 
the  long  centuries  of  their  civilisation  they  devoted  their 
energies  to  the  building  up  and  preserving  of  their  social 
organisation.  Thus,  it  may  be,  came  about  that  solving 
of  the  problem  of  the  sexes,  which  they  among  all  races 
seem  to  have  accomplished.  The  relationships  of  their 
family  life  and  domestic  administration  were  entirely 
civilised  and  humane. 

Nowhere,  except  in  Egypt,  is  so  much  stress  laid  upon 
the  truth,  that  authority  is  sustained  by  affection.  Their 
monuments  and  the  inscriptions  that  have  come  down  to 
us  abundantly  testify  the  value  set  upon  affection :  it  is 
always  the  love  of  the  husband  for  the  wife,  the  wife  for 
the  husband,  or  the  parent  for  the  child,  that  is  recorded. 
The  frequency  and  detail  with  which  such  affections  are 
described,  prove  the  high  estimation  in  which  the  purely 
domestic  virtues  were  held,  as  forming  the  best  and  chief 
title  of  the  dead  to  remembrance  and  honour.  It  is 
clear,  moreover,  that  these  affectionate  relations  between 


IN   EGYPT  195 

the  members  of  a  family  are  counted  among  the  pleasures 
and  joy  of  life.  The  inscriptions  urge  and  warn  the 
survivors  to  miss  none  of  the  joys  of  life,  since  the  dis- 
embodied dead  sleep  in  darkness,  and  this  is  the  worst 
of  their  grief,  "they  know  neither  father  nor  mother, 
they  do  not  awake  to  behold  their  brethren,  their  heart 
yearns  no  longer  after  wife  and  child."  1  There  is  a 
delightful  inscription  on  the  sepulchral  tablet  of  the  wife 
of  a  high  priest  of  Memphis,2  in  which  she  urges  the 
duty  of  happiness  for  her  husband.  It  says — 

"  Hail,  my  brother,  husband,  friend,  ...  let  not  thy  heart  cease 
to  drink  water,  to  eat  bread,  to  drink  wine,  to  love  women,  to 
make  a  happy  day,  and  to  suit  thy  heart's  desire  by  day  and  by 
night.  And  set  no  care  whatsoever  in  thy  heart :  are  the  years 
which  (we  pass)  upon  the  earth  so  many  (that  we  need  do  this)  ?  " 

Such  a  conception,  with  its  clear  idea  of  the  right  of 
happiness,  stands  as  witness  to  the  high  ideal  of  love 
which  regulated  the  Egyptian  family  relationships. 

It  is  necessary  to  remember,  in  this  connection,  that 
the  domestic  ties  of  the  Egyptians  were  firmly  based 
on  proprietary  considerations.  No  surprise  need  be  felt 
that  this  was  so,  when  we  recall  the  wise  arrangements 
of  the  marriage  contracts,  whereby  both  parties  of  the 
union  secured  equal  freedom  and  an  equal  share  in  the 
family  property.  The  antagonism  between  ownership 
and  affection  which  so  frequently  destroys  domestic 
happiness  must  thus  have  been  unknown.  '  There  was 
no  marriage  without  money  or  money's  worth,  but  to 
marry  for  money,  in  the  modern  sense,  was  impossible 

1  Maspero,  Hist.  (German  tr.),  p.  41 ;  see  Simcox,  op.  cit.,  p.  199. 
1  This  tablet  is  in  the  British  Museum,  London.   S.  Egyptian  Gallery, 
Bay  29,  No.  1027. 
O  2 


196          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

where  individual  ownership  was  abolished  by  the  act  of 
marriage  itself."  l 

This  in  itself  explains  the  fact,  proved  by  these  in- 
scriptions, that  the  Egyptian  woman  remained  to  the  end 
of  life,  "  the  beloved  of  her  husband  and  the  mistress 
of  the  house."  "  Make  glad  her  heart  during  the  time 
that  thou  hast,"  was  the  traditional  advice  given  to  the 
husband.  To  this  effect  runs  the  precept  of  Petah 
Hotep 3- 

"If  thou  wouldst  be  a  wise  man,  rule  thy  house  and  love  thy 
wife  wholly  and  constantly.  Feed  her  and  clothe  her,  love  her 
tenderly  and  fulfil  her  desires  as  long  as  thou  livest,  for  she  is  an 
estate  which  conferreth  great  reward  upon  her  lord.3  Be  not  hard 
to  her,  for  she  will  be  more  easily  moved  by  persuasion  than  by 
force.  Observe  what  she  wisheth,  and  that  on  which  her  mind 
runneth,  thereby  shalt  thou  make  her  to  stay  in  thy  house.  If 
thou  resisteth  her  will  it  is  ruin." 

The  maxims  of  Ani,4  written  six  dynasties  later,  give 
the  same  advice  with  fuller  detail — 

"  Do  not  treat  rudely  a  woman  in  her  house  when  you  know  her 
perfectly ;  do  not  say  to  her,  '  Where  is  that  ?  bring  it  to  me  !  ' 
when  she  has  set  it  in  its  place  where  your  eye  sees  it,  and  when 
you  are  silent  you  know  her  qualities.  It  is  a  joy  that  your  hand 
should  be  with  her.  The  man  who  is  fond  of  heart  is  quickly 
master  in  his  house." 

1  Simcox,  Vol.  I.  pp.  218,  219. 

1  Petah  Hotep  was  a  high  official  in  the  reign  of  Assa,  a  king  of  the 
IVth  Dynasty,  about  3360  B.C.  His  precepts  consist  of  aphorisms  of 
high  moral  worth;  there  is  a  late  copy  in  the  British  Museum.  I 
have  followed  the  translation  given  in  the  Guide  to  the  Egyptian 
Collection  p.  77. 

3  This  passage  in  other  translations  reads  :  "  she  is  a  field  profitable 
to  its  owner." 

*  The  Maxims  of  Ani  are  preserved  in  the  Egyptian  Museum  at  Cairo. 
The  work  inculcates  the  highest  standard  of  practical  morality  and 
gives  a  lofty  ideal  of  the  duty  of  the  Egyptians  in  all  the  relations  of 
life. 


IN   EGYPT  197 

Honour  to  the  mother  was  strongly  insisted  on.     The 
sage  Kneusu-Hetep  l  thus  counsels  his  son — 

"Thou  shalt  never  forget  thy  mother  and  what  she  has  done  for 
thee.  From  the  beginning  she  has  borne  a  heavy  burden  with 
thee  in  which  I  have  been  unable  to  help  her.  Wert  thou  to  forget 
her,  then  she  might  blame  thee,  lifting  up  her  arms  unto  God, 
and  he  would  hearken  to  her.  For  she  carried  thee  long  beneath 
her  heart  as  a  heavy  burden,  and  after  thy  months  were  accom- 
plished she  bore  thee.  Three  long  years  she  carried  thee  upon 
her  shoulder  and  gave  thee  her  breast  to  thy  mouth,  and  as  thy 
size  increased  her  heart  never  once  allowed  her  to  say,  '  Why 
should  I  do  this?  '  And  when  thou  didst  go  to  school  and  wast 
instructed  in  the  writings,  daily  she  stood  by  thy  master  with  bread 
and  beer  from  the  house." 

I  would  note  in  passing  that  in  this  passage  we  have 
a  conclusive  testimony  to  health  and  character  of  the 
Egyptian  mother.  The  importance  of  this  is  undoubted, 
when  we  remember  the  active  part  taken  by  women  in 
business  and  in  social  life.  It  is,  I  am  sure,  an  entirely 
mistaken  view  to  hold  that  motherhood  is  a  cause  of 
weakness  to  women.  In  a  wisely  ordered  society  this 
is  not  so.  It  is  the  withdrawal  of  one  class  of  women 
from  labour — the  parasitic  wives  and  daughters  of  the 
rich  (which  of  these  women  could  feed  and  carry  her 
child  for  three  years?),  as  the  forcing  of  other  women 
into  work  under  intolerable  conditions  that  injures 
motherhood.  But  on  these  questions  I  shall  speak  in 
the  final  part  of  my  inquiry. 

When  I  had  written  thus  far  in  this  chapter,  I  went 
from  the  reading-room  of  the  British  Museum,  where 

1  From  the  Boulak  Papyrus  (1500  B.C.).  I  have  followed  in  part  the 
translation  given  by  Griffiths,  The  World's  Literature,  p.  5340,  and  in 
part  that  of  Maspero  given  in  Life  in  Ancient  Egypt  and  Assyria 
(trans,  by  Alice  Morton,  p.  16). 


198          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

all  day  I  had  been  working,  to  spend  a  last  quiet  hour 
in  the  Egyptian  Galleries.  I  knew  one  at  least  of  these 
galleries  well,  but  as  a  rule  I  had  hurried  through  it,  as 
so  many  of  the  reading-room  students  do,  to  reach  the 
refreshment-room  which  is  placed  there.  I  found  I  had 
never  really  seen  anything.  This  time  it  was  different, 
for  my  thoughts  were  aflame  with  the  life  of  this  people, 
whose  wonderful  civilisation  speaks  in  all  these  sculp- 
tured remains  through  the  silence  of  the  centuries. 
Some  fresh  thought  came  to  me  as  I  waited  to  look  at 
first  one  statue  and  then  another.  I  sought  for  those 
which  represented  women.  There  is  a  small  statue  in 
green  basalt  of  Isis  holding  a  figure  of  Osiris  Un-nefer, 
her  son.1  The  goddess  is  represented  as  much  larger 
than  the  young  god,  who  stands  at  her  feet.  The  mar- 
riage of  Isis  with  her  brother  Osiris  did  not  blot  out 
her  independent  position,  her  importance  as  a  deity 
remained  to  the  end  greater  than  his.  Think  for  a 
moment  what  this  placing  of  the  goddess,  rather  than 
the  god,  in  the  forefront  of  Egyptian  worship  signifies; 
very  clearly  it  reflects  the  honour  in  which  the  sex  to 
whom  the  supreme  deity  belongs  was  held.  In  the  third 
Egyptian  room  is  a  seated  statuette  of  Queen  Teta- 
Khart,  a  wife  of  Aahmes  I  (1600  B.C.),  whose  title  was 
"  Royal  Mother,"  and  another  figure  of  Queen  Amen- 
artas  of  the  XXVth  Dynasty  700  B.C.;  near  by  is 
a  beautiful  head  of  the  stone  figure  of  a  priestess.2 
There  is  something  enigmatic  and  strangely  seductive 
in  the  Egyptian  faces;  a  joy  and  calmness  which  are 

1  Southern  Egyptian  Gallery,  Bay  28,  No.  964.  This  statue  belongs 
to  later  Egyptian  history.  It  was  dedicated  by  Shashanq,  a  high  official 
of  the  Ptolemaic  period. 

*  Wall  case  102,  Nos.  187,  38,  and  430. 


IN   EGYPT  199 

implicit  in  freedom.  And  the  impression  is  helped  by 
the  fixed  attitudes,  usually  seated  and  always  facing  the 
spectator,  and  also  by  the  great  size  of  many  of  the 
figures ;  one  seems  to  realise  something  of  the  simplicity 
and  strength  of  the  tireless  enduring  power  of  these 
women  and  men. 

But  I  think  what  interested  me  most  of  all  was  the 
little  difference  manifested  in  the  representations  of  the 
two  sexes.  The  dress  which  each  wears  is  very  much  the 
same ;  the  attitudes  are  alike,  and  so  often  are  the  faces, 
even  in  the  figures  there  seems  no  accentuation  of  the 
sexual  characters.  Often  I  did  not  know  whether  it  was 
at  a  man  or  a  woman,  a  god  or  a  goddess,  I  was  looking, 
until  the  title  of  the  statue  told  me.  How  strange  this 
seemed  to  me,  and  yet  how  significant  of  the  beautiful 
equality  of  partnership  between  the  woman  and  the  man. 
It  is  in  the  statues  which  represent  a  husband  and  wife 
together,  seated  side  by  side,  that  this  likeness  is  most 
evident.  There  are  several  of  these  domestic  groups. 
One  very  interesting  one  is  of  early  date,  and  belongs 
to  the  IVth  Dynasty  3750  B.C.1  It  is  in  painted  lime- 
stone, and  shows  the  portrait  figures  of  Ka-tep,  "a  royal 
kinsman  "  and  priestly  official,  and  his  wife  Hetep-Heres, 
"  a  royal  kinswoman."  The  figures  are  small  and  of  the 
same  size;  the  faces  are  clearly  portraits.  The  one, 
which  I  take  to  be  the  woman,  though  I  am  uncertain 
whether  I  am  right,  has  her  arm  around  the  man,  embrac- 
ing him.  There  is  another  group  2  in  white  limestone  of 
very  fine  work,  portraits  of  a  high  official  and  his  wife. 
The  figures  resemble  each  other  closely,  but  that  of  the 

1  Vestibule  of  North  Egyptian  Gallery,  East  doorway,  No.  14. 
»  South  Gallery,  No.  565. 


200          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

man  is  a  little  larger,  showing  his  rank.  The  man  holds 
the  hand  of  the  woman.  This  statue  belongs  to  the 
XlXth  Dynasty.  On  the  right-hand  side  of  the  North 
Gallery  is  a  second  group  of  an  earlier  period.1  The 
husband  and  wife  are  seated,  and  the  figures  are  of  the 
same  size,  showing  that  their  rank  was  equal ;  their  arms 
are  intertwined,  and  between  them,  standing  at  their  feet, 
is  a  small  figure  of  their  son.  It  was  before  this  family 
group  I  waited  longest :  it  pleased  me  by  its  complete- 
ness and  its  sincerity.  Once  more  I  should  have  had 
difficulty  in  identifying  which  figure  was  the  father  and 
which  the  mother,  but  the  man  wears  a  small  beard.  In 
all  these  statue  groups  there  is  this  great  resemblance 
between  the  sexes. 

Were  the  sexes,  then,  really  alike  in  Egypt?  I  do  not 
know.  Such  a  conception  opens  up  biological  con- 
siderations of  the  deepest  significance.  It  is  so  difficult 
to  be  certain  here.  Is  the  great  boundary  line  which 
divides  the  two  halves  of  life,  with  the  intimate  woman's 
problems  that  depend  upon  it,  to  remain  for  ever  fixed  ? 
In  sex  are  we  always  to  be  faced  with  an  irresolvable 
tangle  of  disharmonies?  Again,  I  do  not  know.  Yet, 
looking  at  these  seated  figures  of  the  Egyptian  husband 
and  wife,  I  felt  that  the  answer  might  be  with  them. 
Do  they  not  seem  to  have  solved  that  secret  which  we 
are  so  painful  in  our  search  of?  The  statues  thus  took 
on  a  kind  of  symbolic  character,  which  eloquently  spoke 
of  a  union  of  the  woman  and  the  man  that  in  freedom 

1  No.  375.  This  group  belongs  to  the  XVIIIth  Dynasty  :  the  husband 
was  a  warden  of  the  palace  and  overseer  of  the  Treasury ;  the  wife  a 
priestess  of  the  god  Amen. 


IN   BABYLON  201 

had  broken  down  the  boundaries  of  sex,  and,  therefore, 
of  life  that  was  in  harmony  with  love  and  joy.  And  the 
beautiful  words  of  the  Egyptian  Song  of  the  Harper 
came  to  my  memory,  and  now  I  understood  them — 

"  Make  (thy)  day  glad  !  Let  there  be  perfumes  and  sweet  odours 
for  thy  nostrils,  and  let  there  be  flowers  and  lilies  for  thy  beloved 
sister  (i.  e.  wife)  who  shall  be  seated  by  thy  side.  Let  there  be 
songs  and  music  of  the  harp  before  thee,  and  setting  behind  thy 
back  unpleasant  things  of  every  kind,  remember  only  gladness, 
until  the  day  cometh  wherein  thou  must  travel  to  the  land  which 
loveth  silence." 


II. — In  Babylon 

"  The  modern  view  of  marriage  recognises  a  relation  that  love  has 
known  from  the  outset.  But  this  is  a  relation  only  possible  between 
free  self-governing  persons." — HOBHOUSE. 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  very  ancient  civilisation  of  Baby- 
lon we  shall  find  women  in  a  position  of  honour  similar 
in  many  ways  to  what  we  have  seen  already  in  Egypt : 
there  are  ever  indications  that  the  earliest  customs  may 
have  gone  beyond  those  of  the  Egyptians  in  exalting 
women.  The  most  archaic  texts  in  the  primitive  lan- 
guage are  remarkable  for  the  precedence  given  to  the 
female  sex  in  all  formulas  of  address  :  "  Goddess  "  and 
gods,  women  and  men,  are  mentioned  always  in  that 
order,  which  is  in  itself  a  decisive  indication  of  the  high 
status  of  women  in  this  early  period.1 

There  are  other  traces  all  pointing  to  the  conclusion 
that  in  the  civilisation  of  primitive  Babylon  mother-right 
was  still  very  much  alive.  It  is  significant  that  the  first 

1  Simcox,  Primitive  Civilisation,  Vol.  I.  pp.  9,  271. 


202          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

rulers  of  Sumer  and  Akkad — the  oldest  Babylonian  cities 
—frequently  made  boast  of  their  unknown  parentage, 
which  can  only  be  explained  by  the  assumption  that 
descent  through  the  father  was  not  recognised.  Thus 
Sargon,1  one  of  the  earlier  rulers,  says :  "  My  mother 
was  a  princess,  my  father  I  know  not  ...  my  mother, 
the  princess,  conceived  me,  in  a  secret  place  she  brought 
me  forth."  A  little  monument  in  the  Hague  museum  has 
an  inscription  which  has  been  translated  thus  :  "  Gudea 
patesi  of  Sirgulla  dedicates  thus  to  Gin-dung-nadda- 
addu,  his  wife."  The  wife's  name  is  interpreted  "maid 
of  the  god  Nebo."  It  is  thought  that  Gudea  reigned  in 
her  right.  The  inscription  goes  on  to  say :  "  Mother  I 
had  not,  my  mother  was  the  water  deep.  A  father  I  had 
not,  my  father  was  the  water  deep."  The  passage  is 
obscure,  but  it  is  explained  if  we  regard  this  as  one  of 
the  legends  of  miraculous  birth  so  frequent  in  primitive 
societies  under  mother-descent.2  Another  relic  of  some 
interest  is  an  ancient  statue  of  a  Babylonian  woman,  not 
a  goddess  or  a  queen,  who  is  presented  alone  and  not 
with  her  husband,  as  was  common  in  Egypt;  such  a 
monument  may  suggest,  as  is  pointed  out  by  Simcox, 
that  women  at  this  period  possessed  wealth  in  their  own 
right. 

As  in  Egypt,  the  mother,  the  father,  and  the  eldest  son 
seem  to  have  been  the  essential  members  of  the  family. 
We  find  that  the  compound  substantive  translated 
"  family  "  means  literally  "  children  household."  This 
is  very  interesting  and  may  betoken  a  conception  of 

1  Hommcl,  Geschichte  Babyloniens  und  Assyriens,  p.  271. 
1  Simcox,  who  quotes  Hommel,  op.  cit.,  p.  320. 


IN   BABYLON  203 

marriage  and  the  family  like  that  of  the  Egyptians,  in 
which  the  union  of  the  wife  and  the  husband  is  only 
fully  established  by  the  birth  of  children.1  In  the  house 
the  wife  is  "  set  in  honour,"  "  glad  and  gladdening  like 
the  mid-day  sun."  The  sun-god  Merodach  is  thus 
addressed  :  "  Like  a  wife  thou  behavest  thyself,  cheerful 
and  rejoicing."  The  sun-god  himself  is  made  to  say, 
"  May  the  wife  whom  thou  lovest  come  before  thee  with 
joy."  These  examples,  and  also  many  others,  such,  for 
instance,  as  the  phrase,  "  As  a  woman  fashioned  for  a 
mother  made  beautiful,"  show  that  the  Babylonians 
shared  the  Egyptian  idealism  in  their  conception  of  the 
wife  and  mother  and  her  relation  to  the  family.  Many 
of  the  Summerian  expressions  throw  beautiful  light  on 
the  happiness  of  the  domestic  relationships.  The  union 
of  the  wife  and  husband  is  spoken  of  as  "  the  undivided 
half,"  the  idiogram  for  the  mother  signifies  the  elements 
"  god  "  and  "  the  house,"  she  is  "  the  enlarger  of  the 
family,"  the  father  is  "  one  who  is  looked  up  to." 

The  information  that  has  come  down  to  us  is  not  so 
full  as  our  knowledge  of  the  Egyptian  family,  or,  at 
least,  the  facts  which  relate  to  women  have  not  yet  been 
so  firmly  established.  We  may,  however,  accept  the 
statement  of  Havelock  Ellis  when  he  says  that  "  in  the 
earliest  times  a  Babylonian  woman  enjoyed  complete 
independence  and  equal  rights  with  her  brothers  and 
husband." a 

Later  in  Babylonian  history — though  still  at  an  early 


^JUJH-WA,        V   \J1.      i.      p.      £\J  L  , 

*  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  393.     Ellis  quotes  Revillout,  "  La 
mme  dans  I'antiquite,"  Journal  Asiatique,  1906.  Vol.  ^ 


204          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

period — women's  rights  were  more  circumscribed,  and 
we  find  them  in  a  position  of  some  subordination.  How 
the  change  arose  is  not  clear,  but  it  is  probable  that  in 
Babylon  civilisation  followed  the  usual  order  of  social 
development,  and  that  with  the  rise  of  military  activities, 
bringing  the  male  force  into  prominence,  women  fell  to 
a  position  of  inferior  power  in  the  family  and  in  the 
State. 

That  this  was  the  condition  of  society  in  Babylon  in  the 
time  of  Hammurabi  (i.  e.  probably  between  2250  B.C.  and 
1950  B.C.)  is  proved  by  the  marriage  code  of  this  ruler, 
which  in  certain  of  its  regulations  affords  a  marked  con- 
trast with  the  Egyptian  marriage  contracts,  always  so 
favourable  to  the  wife.  Marriage,  instead  of  an  agree- 
ment made  between  the  wife  and  the  husband,  was  now 
arranged  between  the  parents  of  the  woman  and  the 
bridegroom  and  without  reference  to  her  wishes.  The 
terms  of  the  marriage  were  a  modified  form  of  purchase, 
very  similar  to  the  exchange  of  gifts  common  among 
primitive  peoples.  It  appears  from  the  code  that  a  sum 
of  money  or  present  was  given  by  the  bridegroom  to  the 
woman's  father  as  well  as  to  the  bride  herself,  but  this 
payment  was  not  universal ;  and,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  account,  the  father  made  over  to  his  daughter  on  her 
marriage  a  dowry,  which  remained  her  own  property  in 
so  far  that  it  was  returned  to  her  in  the  case  of  divorce 
or  on  the  death  of  her  husband,  and  that  it  passed  to 
her  children  and,  failing  them,  to  her  father.1 

Polygamy,  though  permitted,  was  definitely  restricted 

1  I  quote  these  facts  from  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  I. 
p.  179. 


IN   BABYLON  205 

by  the  code.  Thus  a  man  might  marry  a  second  wife 
if  "a  sickness  has  seized"  his  first  wife,  but  the  first 
wife  was  not  to  be  put  away.  This  is  the  only  case  in 
which  two  equal  wives  are  recognised  by  the  code.  But 
it  was  also  possible — as  the  contracts  prove — for  a  man 
to  take  one  or  more  secondary  wives  or  concubines,  who 
were  subordinate  to  the  chief  wife.  In  some  cases  this 
appears  to  have  been  done  to  enable  the  first  wife  to 
adopt  the  children  of  the  concubine  "  as  her  children."  l 
It  is  worth  while  to  note  the  exact  conditions  of  divorce 
in  the  reference  to  women  as  given  in  the  clauses  of 
Hammurabi's  code — 

"137.  If  a  man  has  set  his  face  to  put  away  his  concubine,  who 
has  granted  him  children,  to  that  woman  he  shall  return  his 
marriage  portion,  and  shall  give  her  the  usufruct  of  field,  garden, 
and  goods,  and  shall  bring  up  her  children.  From  the  time  that 
her  children  are  grown  up,  from  whatever  is  given  to  her  children, 
they  shall  give  her  a  share  like  that  of  one  son,  and  she  shall 
marry  the  husband  of  her  choice." 

"  138.  If  a  man  shall  put  away  his  bride,  who  has  not  borne  him 
children,  he  shall  give  her  money  as  much  as  her  bride-price." 

"  139.  If  there  was  no  bride-price  he  shall  give  her  one  mina  of 
silver." 

"  140.  If  he  is  a  poor  man  he  shall  give  one  third  of  a  mina  of 
silver." 

So  far  the  position  of  the  wife  is  secured  in  the  case 
of  the  infidelity  of  the  husband.  But  if  we  turn  to  the 
other  side,  when  it  is  the  woman  who  is  the  unfaithful 
partner  it  is  evident  how  strongly  the  patriarchal  idea 
of  woman  as  property  has  crept  into  the  family  relations. 
We  find  that  a  woman  "who  has  set  her  face  to  go  out 
and  has  acted  the  fool,  has  wasted  her  house  or  has 

1  Hobhouse,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  181. 


206         THE  TRUTH    ABOUT    WOMAN 

belittled  her  husband,"  may  either  be  divorced  without 
compensation  or  retained  in  the  house  as  the  slave  of  a 
new  wife. 

I  would  ask  you  to  contrast  this  treatment  with  the 
free  right  of  separation  granted  to  the  Egyptian  wife, 
whose  position,  as  also  that  of  her  children,  in  all  circum- 
stances was  secure,  and  to  remember  that  this  difference 
in  the  moral  code  for  the  two  sexes  is  always  present,  in 
greater  or  lesser  force,  against  woman  wherever  the 
property  considerations  of  father-right  have  usurped  the 
natural  law  of  mother-right.  Conventional  morality  has 
doubtless  from  the  first  been  on  the  side  of  the  supremacy 
of  the  male.  To  me  it  seems  that  this  alone  must  dis- 
credit any  society  formed  on  the  patriarchal  basis. 

The  Babylonian  wife  was  permitted  to  claim  a  divorce 
under  certain  conditions,  namely,  "if  she  had  been 
economical  and  had  no  vice,"  and  if  she  could  prove  that 
"her  husband  had  gone  out  and  greatly  belittled  her." 
But  the  proof  of  this  carried  with  it  grave  danger  to 
herself,  for  if  on  investigation  it  turned  out  that  "  she 
has  been  uneconomical  or  a  gad-about,  that  woman  one 
shall  throw  into  the  water."  Probably  such  penalty  was 
not  really  carried  out,  but  even  if  the  expression  be  taken 
figuratively  its  significance  in  the  degradation  of  woman 
is  hardly  less  great.  The  position  of  the  wife  as  subject 
to  her  husband  is  clearly  marked  by  the  manner  in  which 
infidelity  is  treated.  The  law  provides  that  both  partners 
may  be  put  to  death  for  an  act  of  unfaithfulness,  but 
while  the  king  may  pardon  "  his  servant "  (the  man),  the 
wife  has  to  receive  pardon  from  "  her  owner  "  (i.e.  the 
husband).  The  lordship  of  the  husband  is  seen  also  in 


IN   BABYLON  207 

his  power  to  dispose  of  his  wife  as  well  as  his  children 
for  debt.1  The  period  for  debt  slavery  was,  however, 
confined  to  the  years  of  Hammurabi.2 

From  this  time  onwards  we  find  the  position  of  the 
wife  continuously  improving,  and  in  the  later  Neo- 
Babylonian  periods  she  again  acquired  equal  rights  with 
her  husband.  The  marriage  law  was  improved  in  the 
woman's  favour.  Contracts  of  marriage  by  purchase 
became  very  rare.  It  appears  from  the  later  contracts 
that  a  wife  could  protect  herself  from  divorce  or  the 
taking  of  another  wife  by  special  penalties  imposed  on 
the  husband  by  the  conditions  of  the  deed,  thus  giving 
her  a  position  of  security  similar  to  that  of  the  Egyptian 
wife. 

In  all  social  relations  the  Babylonian  women  had 
remarkable  freedom.  They  could  conduct  business  in 
their  own  right.  Their  power  to  dispose  of  property  is 
proved  by  numerous  contract  tablets,  and,  at  any  rate 
in  later  periods,  they  were  held  to  possess  a  full  legal 
personality  equal  in  all  points  with  their  husbands.  In 
many  contracts  husband  and  wife  are  conjoined  as 
debtors,  creditors,  and  as  together  taking  pledges.  The 
wife,  as  in  Egypt,  is  made  a  party  to  any  action  of  the 
husband  in  which  her  dowry  is  involved.  The  wife 
could  also  act  independently;  women  appear  by  them- 
selves as  creditors,  and  in  some  contracts  we  find  a  wife 
standing  in  that  relation  to  her  husband.  In  one  case 
a  woman  acts  as  security  for  a  man's  debts  to  another 
woman.  In  a  suit  about  a  slave  a  woman,  who  was 

1  Hobhouse,  op.  cit..  Vol.  I.  p.  180. 

1  There  is  one  case  as  late  as  the  thirteenth  year  of  Nebuchadnezzar 
in  which  a  wife  is  bought  for  a  slave  for  one  and  a  half  gold  minas. 


208          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT    WOMAN 

proved  by  witnesses  to  have  made  a  wrongful  claim, 
was  compelled  to  pay  a  sum  of  money  equivalent  to  the 
value  of  the  slave.  We  find,  too,  a  married  woman  join- 
ing with  a  man  to  sell  a  house.  In  another  case,  in  which 
a  mother  and  son  had  a  sum  of  money  owing  to  them, 
the  debt  was  cancelled  by  giving  a  bill  on  the  mother. 
The  rich  woman,  by  name  Gugua,  disposes  her  property 
among  her  children,  but  she  reserves  the  right  of  taking 
it  back  into  her  own  hands  if  she  should  so  wish,  and 
stipulates  that  it  may  not  be  mortgaged  to  any  one  with- 
out her  consent.1  There  is  another  interesting  deed  2 
by  which  a  father  who,  it  is  suggested,  was  a  spendthrift, 
assigns  the  remnant  of  his  property  to  his  daughter  under 
the  stipulation  "  thou  shalt  measure  to  me,  and  as  long 
as  thou  livest  give  me  maintenance,  food,  ointment  and 
clothing." 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  such  cases.3  All  these 
contract  tablets  have  interest  for  us.  The  active  par- 
ticipation of  the  Babylonian  women  in  property  trans- 
actions is  the  more  instructive  when  we  consider  that  in 
the  development  of  commercial  enterprise  the  Baby- 
lonians were  in  advance  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 
One  is  tempted  to  suggest  that  the  assistance  of  women 
may  have  brought  an  element  into  commerce  beneficial 
to  its  growth.  There  is  ample  evidence  to  show  the 
administrative  and  financial  ability  of  women.  This 
quality  is  noted  by  Lecky  in  the  chapter  on  "Woman 

1  Simcox,  op.  cit.t  Vol.  I.  p.  374,  citing  Les  Obligations,  p.  346 ;   also 
Revue  d'Assyriologie. 

2  This  deed  was  translated  by  Dr.  Peiser,  Keilinschriftliche  Aktenstucke 
aus  babylonischen  Stadte,  p.  19. 

3  See  Simcox,  Chapters,  "  Commercial  Law  and  Contract  Tablets" 
and  "  Domestic  Relations  and  Family  Law,"  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  pp.  320-379. 


IN   BABYLON  209 

Questions  "  in  his  Democracy  and  Liberty,     He  says  : 

"How  many  fortunes  wasted  by  negligence  or  extravagance 
have  been  restored  by  a  long  minority  under  female  management?  " 

He  notes,  too,  the  financial  ability  of  the  French  women. 

"Where  can  we  find  in  a  large  class  a  higher  level  of  business 
habits  and  capacity  than  that  which  all  competent  observers  have 
recognised  in  French  women  of  the  middle  classes?  " 

The  estimate  of  J.  S.  Mill  on  this  question  is  too  well 
known  to  call  for  quotation.  We  may  recall  also  the 
superior  ability  in  trade  of  the  women  of  Burma.  It  is 
not  necessary,  however,  to  seek  for  proof  of  women's 
ability  in  finance.  Against  one  woman  who  mismanages 
her  income  at  least  six  men  may  be  placed  who  mismanage 
theirs,  not  from  any  special  extravagance,  but  from  sheer 
male  inability  to  adapt  expenditure  to  income.  A  woman 
who  has  had  any  business  training  will  discriminate  better 
than  a  man  between  the  essential  and  the  non-essential 
in  expenditure. 

The  civilisation  of  a  people  is  necessarily  determined 
to  a  large  extent  by  the  ideas  of  the  relations  of  the 
sexes,  and  by  the  institutions  and  conventions  that  arise 
through  such  ideas.  One  of  the  most  important  and 
debatable  of  these  questions  is  whether  women  are  to 
be  considered  as  citizens  and  independently  respon- 
sible, or  as  beings  differing  in  all  their  capacities  from 
men,  and,  therefore,  to  be  set  in  positions  of  at  least 
material  dependence  to  an  individual  man.  It  is  the 
answer  to  this  question  we  are  seeking.  The  Baby- 
lonians decided  for  the  civic  equality  of  their  women, 
and  this  decision  must  have  affected  all  their  actions 


210          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

from  the  larger  matters  of  the  State  down  to  the  smallest 
points  of  family  conduct.  The  wisdom  which,  by  giving 
a  woman  full  control  over  her  own  property,  recognised 
her  right  and  responsibility  to  act  for  herself,  was  not, 
as  we  have  seen,  at  once  established.  This  recognition 
of  the  equality  and  fellowship  between  women  and  men 
as  the  finest  working  idea  for  the  family  relationship  was 
only  developed  slowly  through  the  long  centuries  of  their 
civilisation. 

III. — In  Greece 

"  Of  all  things  upon  earth  that  breathe  and  grow 
A  herb  most  bruised  is  woman.     We  must  pay 
Our  store  of  gold,  hoarded  for  that  one  day 
To  buy  us  some  man's  love,  and  lo,  they  bring 
A  master  of  our  flesh.     There  comes  the  sting 
Of  the  whole  shame,  and  then  the  jeopardy 
For  good  or  ill,  what  shall  that  master  be  ? 
Reject  she  cannot,  and  if  she  but  stays 
His  suit,  'tis  shame  on  all  that  woman's  days. 
So  thrown  amid  new  laws,  new  places,  why, 
'Tis  magic  she  must  have  to  prophesy. 
Home  never  taught  her  that — how  best  to  guide 
Towards  peace  this  thing  that  sleepeth  at  her  side, 
And  she,  who,  labouring  long,  shall  find  some  way 
Whereby  her  lord  may  bear  with  her,  nor  fray 
His  yoke  too  fiercely,  blessed  is  the  breath 
That  woman  draws !     Else  let  her  pray  for  death. 
Her  lord,  if  he  be  wearied  of  her  face 
Within  doors,  gets  him  forth;  some  merrier  place 
Will  ease  his  heart;  but  she  waits  on,  her  whole 
Vision  enchained  on  a  single  soul. 
And  then,  forsooth,  'tis  they  that  face  the  call 
Of  war,  while  we  sit  sheltered,  hid  from  all 
Peril.     False  mocking.     Sooner  would  I  stand 
Three  times  to  face  their  battles,  shield  in  hand, 
Than  bear  our  child." — EURIPIDES. 

If  we  turn  now  from  eastern  civilisation  to  ancient 
Greece,  the  picture  there  presented  to  us  is  in  many 
ways  in  sharp  contrast  to  anything  we  have  yet  examined. 
The  Greeks  founded  western  civilisation,  but  their  rapid 


IN  GREECE  211 

advance  in  general  culture  was  by  no  means  accompanied 
by  a  corresponding  improvement  in  the  position  of 
women.  The  fineness  of  their  civilisation  and  their 
exquisite  achievement  in  so  many  directions  makes  it  the 
more  necessary  to  remember  this. 

At  one  time  there  would  seem  to  have  been  in  pre- 
historic Greece  a  period  of  fully  developed  mother- 
rights,  as  is  proved  by  numerous  survivals  of  the  older 
system  so  frequently  met  with  in  Greek  literature  and 
history.  This  was  at  an  earlier  stage  of  civilisation, 
before  the  establishment  of  the  patriarchal  system. 
There  is  little  doubt,  however,  that  the  influence  of 
mother-right  remained  as  a  tradition  for  long  after  the 
actual  rights  had  been  lost  by  women.1  It  will  be  remem- 
bered how  great  was  the  astonishment  of  the  Greek 
travellers  at  the  free  position  of  the  Egyptian  women, 
in  particular  the  apparent  subjection  of  the  husband  to 
his  wife.  Now,  such  surprise  is  in  itself  sufficient  to 
prove  a  different  conception  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes. 

1  To  give  a  few  examples,  Plutarch  mentions  that  the  relations 
between  husband  and  wife  in  Sparta  were  at  first  secret  (Plutarch, 
Lycurgas).  The  story  told  by  Pausanias  about  Ulysses'  marriage 
points  to  the  custom  of  the  husband  going  to  live  with  his  wife's  family 
(Pausanias,  III.  20  (10),  Frazer's  translation).  The  legend  of  the 
establishment  of  monogamy  by  Cecrpps,  because,  before  his  time,  "  men 
had  their  wives  in  common  and  did  not  know  their  fathers,"  points 
clearly  to  a  confused  tradition  of  a  period  of  mother-descent.  (A  Ihenceus, 
XIII.  2).  Herodotus  reports  that  mother-descent  was  practised  by  the 
Lycians,  and  states  that  "  if  a  free  woman  marry  a  man  who  is  a  slave 
their  children  are  free  citizens ;  but  if  a  free  man  marry  a  foreign  woman 
or  cohabit  with  a  concubine,  even  though  he  be  the  first  person  in  the 
state,  the  children  forfeit  all  rights  of  citizenship  (Herodotus,  Bk.  I.  173). 
The  wife  of  Intaphernes,  when  granted  by  Darius  permission  to  claim  the 
life  of  a  single  man  of  her  kindred,  chose  her  brother,  saying  that  both 
husband  and  brother  and  children  could  be  replaced  (Herodotus,  Bk.  III. 
119).  Similarly  the  declaration  of  Antigone  in  Sophocles  (line  905  ff.) 
that  neither  for  husband  nor  children  would  she  have  performed  the  toil 
she  undertook  for  Polynices  clearly  shows  that  the  tie  of  the  common 
womb  was  held  as  closer  than  the  tie  of  marriage. 

p  a 


212          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

The  patriarchal  view  whereby  the  woman  is  placed 
under  the  protection  and  authority  of  the  man  was 
already  clearly  established  in  the  Hellenic  belief.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  this  fact,  the  position  of  the  woman  was 
striking  and  peculiar,  and  in  some  directions  remarkably 
free,  and  thus  offering  many  points  of  interest  not  less 
important  in  their  significance  to  us  than  what  we  have 
seen  already  in  Egypt  and  in  Babylon. 

In  speaking  of  the  Hellenic  woman  I  can  select  only 
a  few  facts;  to  deal  at  all  adequately  with  so  large  a 
subject  in  briefest  outline  is,  indeed,  impossible.  I  shall 
not  even  try  to  picture  the  marriage  and  family  rela- 
tionships, which  offer  in  many  and  varied  ways  a  wide 
and  fascinating  study;  all  that  I  can  do  is  to  point  to 
some  of  the  conditions  and  suggest  the  conclusions  which 
seem  to  arise  from  them.  Glancing  first  at  the  women 
of  the  Homeric l  period  we  find  them  represented  as 
holding  a  position  of  entire  dependence,  without  rights 
or  any  direct  control  over  property;  under  the  rule  of 
the  father,  and  afterwards  of  the  husband,  and  even  in 
some  cases  humbly  submissive  to  their  sons.  Tele- 
machus  thus  rebukes  his  mother  :  "  Go  to  thy  chamber ; 
attend  to  thy  work ;  turn  the  spinning  wheel ;  weave  the 
linen;  see  that  thy  servants  do  their  tasks.  Speech 
belongs  to  men,  and  especially  to  me,  who  am  the  master 
here."  And  Penelope  allows  herself  to  be  silenced  and 
obeys,  "  bearing  in  mind  the  sage  discourse  of  her  son."  a 

1  For  a  full  account  of  the  Homeric  woman  the  reader  is  referred  to 
Lenz,  Geschichte  des  Weiber  im  Heroischen  Zeitalter,  an  admirable  work. 
The  fullest  English  account  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Gladstone's  Homeric 
Studies,  Vol.  II.  See  also  Donaldson,  Woman,  pp.  11-23,  where  an 
excellent  summary  of  the  subject  is  given. 

*  Odyssey,  I.  2. 


IN   GREECE  218 

This  is  the  fully  developed  patriarchal  idea  of  the  duties 
of  the  woman  and  her  patient  submission  to  the  man. 

Now,  if  we  look  only  at  the  outside  of  such  a  case  as 
this  it  would  appear  that  the  position  of  the  Homeric 
woman  was  one  of  almost  complete  subjection.  Whereas, 
as  every  one  knows,  the  facts  are  far  different.  The  pro- 
tection of  the  woman  was  a  condition  made  necessary  in 
an  unstable  society  of  predominating  military  activity. 
Apart  from  this  wardship,  women  very  clearly  were  not 
in  a  subordinate  position  and,  moreover,  never  regarded 
as  property.  The  very  reverse  is  the  case.  Nowhere 
in  the  whole  range  of  literature  are  women  held  in  deeper 
affection  or  receive  greater  honour.  To  take  one  in- 
stance. Andromache  relates  how  her  father's  house  has 
been  destroyed  with  all  who  were  in  it,  and  then  she 
says  :  "  But  now,  Hector,  thou  art  my  father  and  gracious 
mother,  thou  art  my  brother,  nay,  thou  art  my  valiant 
husband."  1  It  is  easy  to  see  in  this  speech  how  the  early 
ideas  of  relationships  under  mother-right  had  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  husband,  as  the  protector  of  the  woman, 
conditioned  by  father-right. 

Again  and  again  we  meet  with  traces  of  the  older 
customs  of  the  mother-age.  The  influence  of  woman 
persists  as  a  matter  of  habit;  even  the  formal  elevation 
of  woman  to  positions  of  authority  is  not  uncommon,  with 
an  accompanying  freedom  in  action,  which  is  wholly  at 
variance  with  the  patriarchal  ideal.  Thus  it  is  common 
for  the  husband  to  consult  his  wife  in  all  important  con- 
cerns, though  it  was  her  special  work  to  look  after  the 
affairs  of  the  house.  "  There  is  nothing,"  says  Homer, 

1  Iliad,  VI.  429-430. 


214          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

"  better  and  nobler  than  when  husband  and  wife,  being 
of  one  mind,  rule  a  household."  *  Penelope  and  Clytem- 
nestra  are  left  in  charge  of  the  realms  of  their  husbands 
during  their  absence  in  Troy ;  the  beautiful  Chloris  ruled 
as  queen  in  Pylos.2  Arete,  the  beloved  wife  of  Alcinous, 
played  an  important  part  as  peacemaker  in  the  kingdom 
of  her  husband.  It  is  to  her  Nausicaa  brings  Ulysses 
on  his  return,  bidding  him  kneel  to  her  mother  if  he  would 
gain  a  welcome  and  succour  from  her  father.3 

We  find  the  Homeric  women  moving  freely  among 
men.  They  might  go  where  they  liked,  and  do  what 
they  liked.4  As  girls  they  were  educated  with  their 
brothers  and  friends,  attending  together  the  classes 
of  the  bards  and  dancing  with  them  in  the  public 
dancing-places  which  every  town  possessed.  Homer 
pictures  the  youths  and  the  maidens  pressing  the  vines 
together.  They  mingled  together  at  marriage  feasts  and 
at  religious  festivals.  Women  took  part  with  men  in 
offering  the  sacrifices  to  the  gods;  they  also  went  alone 
to  the  temples  to  present  their  offerings.5  Nor  did 
marriage  restrict  their  freedom.  Helen  appears  on  the 
battlements  of  Troy,  watching  the  conflict,  accompanied 
only  by  her  maidens. 

This  freedom  insured  to  the  Homeric  women  that 
vigour  of  body  and  beauty  of  person  for  which  they  are 
renowned.  Health  was  the  first  condition  of  beauty. 
The  Greeks  wanted  strong  men,  therefore  the  mothers 

1  Odyssey,  VI.  182. 

2  Gladstone,  Homeric  Studies,  Vol.  II.  p.  507. 

3  Odyssey,  VII.  142  ff. 

4  Donaldson,  Woman,  p.  18-19. 

6  Odyssey,  III.  450;   Iliad,  VI.  301. 


IN   GREECE  215 

must  be  strong,  and  this,  as  among  all  peoples  who  have 
understood  the  valuation  of  life  more  clearly  than  others, 
made  necessary  a  high  physical  development  of  woman. 
Yet,  I  think,  that  an  even  more  prominent  reason  was 
the  need  by  the  woman  herself  for  the  protection  of  the 
male,  which  made  it  her  first  duty  to  charm  the  man 
whom  destiny  brought  to  be  her  companion.  This  is  a 
point  that  must  not  be  overlooked.  To  me  it  is  very 
significant  that  in  all  the  records  of  the  Egyptians,  show- 
ing so  clearly  the  love  and  honour  in  which  woman  was 
held,  we  find  no  insistence  on,  and,  indeed,  hardly  a 
reference  to,  the  physical  beauty  of  woman.  It  is  love 
itself  that  is  exalted;  a  husband  wishing  to  honour  his 
lost  wife  says  :  "  she  was  sweet  as  a  palm  tree  in  her 
love,"  he  does  not  tell  us  if  she  were  beautiful.1  I  can- 
not follow  this  question  further.  Yet  it  is  clear  that 
danger  lurks  for  woman  and  her  freedom,  when  to  safe- 
guard her  independence,  she  has  no  other  resources  than 
the  seduction  of  her  beauty  to  gain  and  to  hold  the  love 
she  is  able  to  inspire.  Sex  becomes  a  defensive  weapon, 
and  one  she  must  use  for  self-protection,  if  she  is  to  live. 
It  seems  clear  to  me  that  this  economic  use  of  sex  is  the 
real  cancer  at  the  very  root  of  the  sexual  relationship. 
It  is  but  a  step  further  and  a  perfectly  logical  one,  that 
leads  to  prostitution.  At  a  later  period  of  Hellenic 
civilisation  we  find  Aristotle  warning  the  young  men  of 
Athens  against  "the  excess  of  conjugal  tenderness  and 
feminine  tyranny  which  enchains  a  man  to  his  wife." a 

1  Simcox,  Primitive  Civilisation,  Vol.  I.  p.  199.  Reference  may  also 
be  made  to  the  love-charm  translated  by  M.  Revillout  in  his  version  of 
the  Tales  of  Selna,  p.  37. 

1  2  Nic.  Ethics,  VIII.  14;   Econom.  I.  p.  94. 


216          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

Can  any  surprise  be  felt ;  does  one  not  wonder  rather  at 
the  blindness  of  man's  understanding?    That  such  warn- 
ing against  women  should  have  been  spoken  in  Egypt 
is  incredible.     Woman's  position  and  liberty  of  action 
was  in  no  way  dependent  on  her  power  of  sex-fascination, 
not  even  directly  on  her  position  as  mother,  and  this 
really  explains  the   happy  working   of   their  domestic 
relationships.      Nature's    supreme   gifts   of   the   sexual 
differences  among  them  were  freed  from  economic  neces- 
sities, and  woman  as  well  as  man  was  permitted  to  turn 
them  to  their  true  biological  ends — the  mutual  joy  of 
each  other  and  the  service  of  the  race.    For  this  is  what 
I  want  to  make  clear;  it  is  men  who  suffer  in  quite  as 
great  a  degree  as  women,  wherever  the  female  has  to 
use  her  sexual  gifts  to  gain  support  and  protection  from 
the  male.     It  is  so  plain — one  thing  makes  the  relations 
of  the  sexes  free,  that  both  partners  shall  themselves  be 
free,  knowing  no  bondage  that  is  outside  the  love-passion 
itself.     Then,  and  then  only,  can  the  woman  and  the 
man — the  mother  and  father,  really  love  in  freedom  and 
together  carry  out  love's  joys  and  its  high  and  holy 
duties. 

The  conditions  that  meet  us  when  we  come  to  examine 
the  position  of  women  in  historic  Greece  are  explained 
in  the  light  of  this  valuation  of  the  sexual  relationship. 
We  are  faced  at  once  by  a  curious  contrast ;  on  one  hand, 
we  find  in  Sparta,  under  a  male  social  organisation,  the 
women  of  JEolian  and  Dorian  race  carrying  on  and 
developing  the  Homeric  traditions  of  freedom,  while  the 
Athenian  women,  on  the  contrary,  are  condemned  to  an 
almost  Oriental  seclusion.  How  these  conditions  arose 


IN   GREECE  217 

becomes  clear,  when  we  remember  that  the  prominent 
idea  regulating  all  the  legislation  of  the  Greeks  was  to 
maintain  the  permanence  and  purity  of  the  State.  In 
Sparta  the  first  of  these  motives  ruled.  The  conditions 
in  which  the  State  was  placed  made  it  necessary  for  the 
Spartans  to  be  a  race  of  soldiers,  and  to  ensure  this  a 
race  of  vigorous  mothers  was  essential.  They  had  the 
wisdom  to  understand  that  their  women  could  only  effect- 
ively discharge  the  functions  assigned  to  them  by  Nature 
by  the  free  development  of  their  bodies,  and  full  cultiva- 
tion of  their  mental  faculties.  Sappho,  whose  "lofty 
and  subtle  genius "  places  her  as  the  one  woman  for 
whose  achievement  in  poetry  no  apology  on  the  grounds 
of  her  sex  ever  needs  to  be  made,  was  of  ^olian  race. 
The  Spartan  woman  was  a  huntress  and  an  athlete  and 
also  a  scholar,  for  her  training  was  as  much  a  care  of 
the  State  as  that  of  her  brothers.  Her  education  was 
deliberately  planned  to  fit  her  to  be  a  mother  of  men. 

It  was  the  sentiment  of  strict  and  zealous  patriotism 
which  inspired  the  marriage  regulations  that  are  attri- 
buted to  Lycurgus.  The  obligation  of  marriage  was 
legal,  like  military  service.1  All  celibates  were  placed 
under  the  ban  of  society.3  The  young  men  were 
attracted  to  love  by  the  privilege  of  watching  (and  it  is 
also  said  assisting  in)  the  gymnastic  exercise  of  naked 
young  girls,  who  from  their  earliest  youth  entered  into 
contests  with  each  other  in  wrestling  and  racing  and  in 
throwing  the  quoit  and  javelin.3  The  age  of  marriage  was 
also  fixed,  special  care  being  taken  that  the  Spartan  girls 

1  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,   p.  195. 

»  Lycurgus,  XXXVII.  » Ibid.,  XXVI. 


218          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

should  not  marry  too  soon;  no  sickly  girl  was  permitted 
to  marry.1  In  the  supreme  interest  of  the  race  love  was 
regulated.  The  young  couple  were  not  allowed  to  meet 
except  in  secret  until  after  a  child  was  born.2  Brothers 
might  share  a  wife  in  common,  and  wife  lending  was 
practised.  It  was  a  praiseworthy  act  for  an  old  man 
to  give  his  wife  to  a  strong  man  by  whom  she  might 
have  a  child.3  The  State  claimed  a  right  over  all 
children  born ;  each  child  had  to  be  examined  soon  after 
birth  by  a  committee  appointed,  and  only  if  healthy 
was  it  allowed  to  live.4 

Such  a  system  is  no  doubt  open  to  objections,  yet  no 
other  could  have  served  as  well  the  purpose  of  raising 
and  maintaining  a  race  of  efficient  warriors.  The 
Spartans  held  their  supremacy  in  Greece  through  sheer 
force  and  bravery  and  obedience  to  law;  and  the  women 
had  equal  share  with  the  men  in  this  high  position. 
Necessarily  they  were  remarkable  for  vigour  of  char- 
acter and  the  beauty  of  their  bodies,  for  beauty  rests 
ultimately  on  a  biological  basis. 

Women  took  an  active  interest  in  all  that  concerned 
the  State,  and  were  allowed  a  freedom  of  action  even 
in  sexual  conduct  equal  and,  in  some  directions,  greater 
than  that  of  men.  The  law  restricted  women  only  in 
their  function  as  mothers.  Plato  has  criticised  this  as 
a  marked  defect  of  the  Spartan  system.  Men  were  under 

1  Donaldson,  Woman,  pp.  28-29. 

1  Plutarch,  Apophthegms  of  the  Lacedemonians. — Demandes  Romaines, 
LXV. 

3  Lycurgus,  Polybius,  XII.  6.  Xenophon,  Rep.  Laced.  I.  Aristotle, 
Pol.  II.  9.     Aristotle  notes  especially  the  sexual  liberty  allowed  to 
women. 

4  Donaldson,  op.  cit.,  p.  28. 


IN   GREECE  219 

strict  regulation  to  the  end  of  their  days;  they  dined 
together  on  the  fare  determined  by  the  State ;  no  licence 
was  permitted  to  them;  almost  their  whole  time  was 
occupied  in  military  service.  No  such  regulations  were 
made  for  women,  they  might  live  as  they  liked.  One 
result  was  that  many  wives  were  better  educated  than 
their  husbands.  We  find,  too,  that  a  great  portion  of 
land  passed  into  the  hands  of  women.  Aristotle  states 
that  they  possessed  two-fifths  of  it.  He  deplores  the 
Spartan  system,  and  affirms  that  in  his  day  the  women 
were  "  incorrigible  and  luxurious  " ;  he  accuses  them  of 
ruling  their  husbands.  "What  difference,"  he  says, 
"  does  it  make  whether  the  women  rule  or  the  rulers  are 
ruled  by  women,  for  the  result  is  the  same  ? " *  This 
gynaecocracy  was  noticed  by  others.  '  You  of  Lace- 
daemon,"  said  a  strange  lady  to  Gorgo,  wife  of  Leonidas, 
"are  the  only  women  in  the  world  that  rule  the  men." 
"  We,"  she  answered,  "  are  the  only  women  who  bring 
forth  men."  3  Such  were  the  Spartan  women. 

In  Athens  the  position  of  women  stands  out  in  sharp 
contrast.  Athens  was  the  largest  of  the  city-states  of 
Greece,  and,  for  its  stability,  it  was  ruled  that  no  stranger 
might  enter  into  the  rights  of  its  citizens.  Restrictions 
of  the  most  stringent  nature  and  punishments  the  most 
terrible  were  employed  to  keep  the  citizenship  pure.  As 
is  usual,  the  restrictions  fell  most  heavily  upon  women. 
It  would  seem  that  the  sexual  virtue  of  the  Athenian 
women  was  not  trusted — it  was  natural  to  women  to  love. 
Doubtless  there  were  many  traces  of  the  earlier  sexual 

1  Polit.  II.  9. 

*  Plutarch,  Life  of  Agis;  Donaldson,  Woman,  pp.  34,  35. 


220          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

freedom  under  mother-right.  Women  must  be  kept  in 
guard  to  ensure  that  no  spurious  offspring  should  be 
brought  into  the  State.  This  explains  the  Athenian  mar- 
riage code  with  its  unusually  strict  subordination  of  the 
woman  to  her  father  first,  and  then  to  her  husband.  It 
explains  also  the  unequal  law  of  divorce.  In  early  times 
the  father  might  sell  his  daughters  and  barter  his  sisters. 
This  was  abolished  by  Solon,  except  in  the  case  of 
unchastity.  There  could,  however,  be  no  legitimate 
marriage  without  the  assignment  of  the  bride  by  her 
guardian.1  The  father  was  even  able  to  bequeath  his 
unmarried  daughters  by  will.2  The  part  assigned  by  the 
Athenian  law  to  the  wife  in  relation  to  her  husband  was 
very  similar  to  that  of  the  married  women  under  ancient 
Jewish  law. 

Women  were  secluded  from  all  civic  life  and  from  all 
intellectual  culture.  There  were  no  regular  schools  for 
girls  in  Athens,  and  no  care  was  taken  by  the  State,  as 
in  Sparta,  for  the  young  girls'  physical  well-being.  The 
one  quality  required  from  them  was  chastity,  and  to 
ensure  this  women  were  kept  even  from  the  light  of  the 
sun,  confined  in  special  apartments  in  the  upper  part  of 
the  house.  One  husband,  indeed,  Ischomachus,  recom- 
mends his  wife  to  take  active  bodily  exercise  as  an  aid 
to  her  beauty ;  but  she  is  to  do  this  "  not  in  the  fresh  air, 
for  that  would  not  be  suitable  for  an  Athenian  matron, 
but  in  baking  bread  and  looking  after  her  linen."3  So 
strictly  was  the  seclusion  of  the  wife  adhered  to  that  she 

J  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  I.  p.  208. 

*  Thus  Demosthenes  bequeathed  his  two  daughters,  aged  seven  and 
five  years,  and  also  their  mother,  to  his  nephews,  classing  them  with 
his  property  in  the  significant  phrase  "  all  these  things  "  (Letourneau, 
op.  cit.,  p.  196). 

3  Xenophon,  Economicus,  VII.-IX. 


IN   GREECE  221 

was  never  permitted  to  show  herself  when  her  husband 
received  guests.  It  was  even  regarded  as  evidence  of 
the  non-existence  of  a  regular  marriage  if  the  wife  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  attending  the  feasts  *  given  by  the 
man  whom  she  claimed  as  husband. 

The  deterioration  of  the  Athenian  citizen-women  fol- 
lowed as  the  inevitable  result.  It  is  also  impossible  to 
avoid  connecting  the  swift  decline  of  the  fine  civilisation 
of  Athens  with  this  cause.  Had  the  political  power  of 
her  citizens  been  based  on  healthier  social  and  domestic 
relationships,  it  might  not  have  fallen  down  so  rapidly 
into  ruin.  No  civilisation  can  maintain  itself  that 
neglects  the  development  of  the  mothers  that  give  it 
birth. 

As  we  should  expect  we  find  little  evidence  of  affec- 
tion between  the  Athenian  husband  and  wife.  The 
entire  separation  between  their  work  and  interests  would 
necessarily  preclude  ideal  love.  Probably  Sophocles 
presents  the  ordinary  Greek  view  accurately,  when  he 
causes  one  of  his  characters  to  regret  the  loss  of  a  brother 
or  sister  much  more  than  that  of  a  wife.  "  If  a  wife  dies 
you  can  get  another,  but  if  a  brother  or  sister  dies,  and 
the  mother  is  dead,  you  can  never  get  another.  The  one 
loss  is  easily  reparable,  the  other  is  irreparable."  2  We 
could  have  no  truer  indication  than  this  as  to  the 
degradation  into  which  woman  had  fallen  in  the  sexual 
relationship. 

That  once,  indeed,  it  had  been  far  otherwise  with  the 

1  Isaeus  de  Pyrrhi  Her.,  §  14. 

1  Aniig.  905-13.  These  verses  are  probably  interpolated,  but  the 
interpolation  was  as  early  as  Aristotle.  The  same  views  are  placed  by 
Herodotus  in  the  mouth  of  the  wife  of  Intarphernes  (3.  119).  See 
Donaldson,  Woman,  pp.  53,  54  and  note. 


222  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

Athenian  women  the  ancient  legends  witness.  Athens 
was  the  city  of  Pallas  Athene,  the  goddess  of  strength 
and  power,  which  in  itself  testifies  to  a  time  when  women 
were  held  in  honour.  The  Temple  of  the  Goddess,  high 
on  the  Acropolis,  stood  as  a  relic  of  matriarchal  worship. 
Year  by  year  the  secluded  women  of  Athens  wove  a  robe 
for  Athene.  Yet,  so  complete  had  become  their  sub- 
jection and  their  withdrawal  from  the  duties  of  citizens, 
that  when  in  the  Theatre  of  Dyonysus  men  actors  person- 
ated the  great  traditional  women  of  the  Greek  Heroic 
Age,  no  woman  was  permitted  to  be  present.1  What 
wonder,  then,  that  the  Athenian  women  rebelled  against 
the  wastage  of  their  womanhood.  That  they  did  rebel 
we  may  be  certain  on  the  strength  of  the  satirical  state- 
ments of  Aristophanes,  and  even  more  from  the  pathos 
of  the  words  put  here  and  there  into  the  mouths  of  women 
by  Euripides — 

"  Of  all  things  upon  earth  that  breathe  and  grow 
A  herb  most  bruised  is  woman.     We  must  pay 
Our  store  of  gold,  hoarded  for  that  one  day 
To  buy  us  some  man's  love,  and  lo,  they  bring 
A  Master  of  our  flesh.     There  comes  the  sting 
Of    the  whole  shame."  a 

The  debased  position  of  the  Athenian  citizen  woman 
becomes  abundantly  clear  when  we  find  that  ideal  love 
and  free  relationship  between  the  sexes  were  possible 
only  with  the  hetairce.  Limitation  of  space  forbids  my 
giving  any  adequate  details  of  these  stranger-women, 
who  were  the  beloved  companions  of  the  Athenian  men. 
Prohibited  from  legal  marriage  by  law,  these  women  were 
in  all  other  respects  free ;  their  relations  with  men,  either 

1  "The  Position  of  Women  in  History  "  ;    Essay  in  the  volume  The 
Position  of  Woman,  Actual  and  Ideal,  p.  37. 

2  Medea. 


IN   GREECE  223 

temporary  or  permanent,  were  openly  entered  into  and 
treated  with  respect.  For  the  Greeks  the  hetaira  was 
in  no  sense  a  prostitute.  The  name  meant  friend  and 
companion.  The  women  to  whom  the  name  was  applied 
held  an  honourable  and  independent  position,  one, 
indeed,  of  much  truer  honour  than  that  of  the  wife. 

These  facts  may  well  give  us  pause.  It  was  not  the 
women  who  were  the  legal  wives,  safeguarded  to  ensure 
their  chastity,  restricted  to  their  physical  function  of 
procreation,  but  the  hetairce,  says  Donaldson,  "who 
exhibited  what  was  best  and  noblest  in  woman's  nature." 
Xenophon's  ideal  wife  was  a  good  housekeeper — like  her 
of  the  Proverbs.  Thucydides  in  the  famous  funeral 
oration  which  he  puts  in  the  mouth  of  Pericles,  exhorts 
the  wives  of  the  slain  warriors,  whose  memory  is  being 
commemorated,  "  to  shape  their  lives  in  accordance  with 
their  natures,"  and  then  adds  with  unconscious  irony, 
"  Great  is  the  glory  of  that  woman  who  is  least  talked 
of  by  men,  either  in  the  way  of  praise  or  blame."  Such 
were  the  barren  honours  granted  to  the  legal  wife.  The 
hetairce  were  the  only  educated  women  in  Athens.  It 
was  only  the  free-companion  who  was  a  fit  helpmate  for 
Pericles,  or  capable  of  sustaining  a  conversation  with 
Socrates.  We  know  that  Socrates  visited  Theodota 1 
and  the  brilliant  Diotima  of  Mantinea,  of  whom  he 
speaks  "  as  his  teacher  in  love."  2  Thargalia,  a  Milesian 
stranger,  gained  a  position  of  high  political  importance.3 

1  Theodota,  Xen.  'Mem.,'  III.  n.  Socrates  conversed  with  Theodota 
on  art  and  discussed  with  her  how  she  could  best  find  true  friends. 

1  Symposium. 

3  Pericles,  24.  Thargalia  used  her  influence  over  the  Greeks  to  win 
them  over  to  the  cause  of  the  King  of  Persia. 


224          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

When  Alcibiades  had  to  flee  for  his  life,  it  was  a  "  com- 
panion" who  went  with  him,  and  being  present  at  his 
end  performed  the  funeral  rites  over  him.1  Praxiteles 
carved  a  statue  of  Phryne  in  gold,  and  the  work  stood  in 
a  place  of  honour  in  the  temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi. 
Apelles  painted  a  portrait  of  Lais,  and,  for  his  skill  as 
an  artist,  Alexander  rewarded  him  with  the  gift  of  his 
favourite  concubine;  Pindar  wrote  odes  to  the  hetairce; 
Leontium,  one  of  the  order,  sat  at  the  feet  of  Epicurus 
to  imbibe  his  philosophy.2 

Among  all  these  free  women  Aspasia  of  Miletus 3 
stands  forward  as  the  most  brilliant — the  most  remark- 
able. There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  intellectual  distinc- 
tion of  the  beloved  companion  of  Pericles.4  Her  house 
became  the  resort  of  all  the  great  men  of  Athens. 
Socrates,  Phidias  and  Anaxagoras  were  all  frequent 
visitors,  and  probably  also  Sophocles  and  Euripides. 
Plato,  Xenophon  and  ^schines  have  all  testified  to  the 
cultivated  mind  and  influence  of  Aspasia.  ^schines, 

1  Timandra,  Plut.,  Alcib.,  c.  39. 

2  Geoffrey  Mortimer  (W.  M.  Gallichan),  Chapters  on  Human  Love, 
p.  152. 

3  We  do  not  know  the  circumstances  which  induced  Aspasia  to  come 
to  Athens.     Plutarch  suggests  that  she  was  led  to  do  so  by  the  example 
of  Thargalia.     For  full  accounts  of  the  career  of  Aspasia  see  Gomperz, 
Greek  Thinkers,  Vol.  III.;    Ivo  Bruns,  Frauenemancipation  in  A  then  ; 
the  fine  monograph,  Aspasie  de  Milet,  by  Becq  Fouquieres;  Donaldson's 
Woman,  pp.  60-67;  ^so  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  308. 

4  Pericles  at  the  time  of  his  meeting  Aspasia  was  married,  but  there 
was  incompatibility  of  temper  between  him  and  his  wife.     He  therefore 
made  an  agreement  with  his  wife  to  have  a  divorce  and  get  her  remarried. 
Aspasia  then  became  his  companion  and  they  remained  together  until 
the  death  of  Pericles.     Their  affection  for  one  another  was  considered 
remarkable.     Plutarch  tells  us,  as  an  extraordinary  trait  in  the  habits 
of  a  statesman  who  was  remarkable  for  his  imperturbability  and  control, 
that  Pericles  regularly  kissed  Aspasia  when  he  went  out  and  came  in. 
When  Pericles  died  Aspasia  is  said  to  have  formed  a  friendship  with 
Lysicles,  and  through  her  influence  raised  him  to  the  position  of  foremost 
politician  in  Athens  (Donaldson,  op.  cit.,  pp.  60,  61  and  63). 


IN   GREECE  225 

in  his  dialogue  entitled  4'  Aspasia,"  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  that  distinguished  woman  an  incisive  criticism  of  the 
mode  of  life  traditional  for  her  sex.1 

The  high  status  of  the  hetaira  is  proved  conclusively 
from  the  fact  that  the  men  who  visited  Aspasia  brought 
their  wives  with  them  to  her  assemblies,  that  they  might 
learn  from  her.3  This  breaking  through  the  accepted 
conventions  is  the  more  significant  if  we  consider  the 
circumstances.  Here,  indeed,  is  your  contrast — the  free 
companion  expounding  the  dignity  of  womanhood  to  the 
imprisoned  mothers !  Aspasia  points  out  to  the  citizen 
women  that  it  is  not  sufficient  for  a  wife  to  be  merely  a 
mother  and  a  good  housekeeper ;  she  urges  them  to  culti- 
vate their  minds  so  that  they  may  be  equal  in  mental 
dignity  with  the  men  who  love  them.  Aspasia  may  thus 
be  regarded,  as  Havelock  Ellis  suggests,  as  "a  pioneer 
in  the  assertion  of  woman's  rights."  "  She  showed  that 
spirit  of  revolt  and  aspiration  "  which  tends  to  mark  "  the 
intellectual  and  artistic  activity  of  those  who  are  un- 
classed  or  dubiously  classed  in  the  social  hierarchy." 

It  is  even  probable  that  the  movement  to  raise  the 
status  of  the  Athenian  women,  which  seems  to  have  taken 
place  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  was  led  by  Aspasia,  and 
perhaps  other  members  of  the  hetairce.  Ivo  Bruns, 
whom  Havelock  Ellis  quotes,  believes  that  "  the  most 
certain  information  we  possess  concerning  Aspasia  bears 
a  strong  resemblance  to  the  picture  which  Euripides  and 
Aristophanes  present  to  us  of  the  leaders  of  the  woman's 
movement." 8 

1  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers,  Vol.  III.  p.  124. 

1  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  308 ;  Donaldson,  op.  cit.,  p.  62. 

3  Frauenemancipation  in  A  then,  p.  19. 

Q 


226          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

It  was  this  movement  of  awakening  which  throws  light 
on  the  justice  which  Plato  accords  to  women.  He  may 
well  have  had  Aspasia  in  his  thoughts.  Contact  with  her 
cultivated  mind  may  have  brought  him  to  see  that  "  the 
gifts  of  nature  are  equally  diffused  in  both  sexes,"  and 
therefore  "  all  the  pursuits  of  man  are  the  pursuits  of 
woman  also,  and  in  all  of  these  woman  is  only  a  weaker 
man."  Plato  did  not  believe  that  women  were  equally 
gifted  with  men,  only  that  all  their  powers  were  in  their 
nature  the  same,  and  demanded  a  similar  expression. 
He  insists  much  more  on  woman's  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities than  on  her  rights;  more  on  what  the  State  loses 
by  her  restriction  within  the  home  than  on  any  loss 
entailed  thereby  to  herself.  Such  a  fine  understanding 
of  the  need  of  the  State  for  women  as  the  real  ground 
for  woman's  emancipation,  is  the  fruitful  seed  in  this 
often  quoted  passage.  May  it  not  have  arisen  in  Plato's 
mind  from  the  contrast  he  saw  between  Aspasia  and  the 
free  companions  of  men  and  the  restricted  and  ignorant 
wives?  A  vivid  picture  would  surely  come  to  him  of 
the  force  lost  by  this  wastage  of  the  mothers  of  Athens ; 
a  force  which  should  have  been  utilised  for  the  well- 
being  of  the  State. 

Sexual  penalties  for  women  are  always  found  under  a 
strict  patriarchal  regime.  The  white  flower  of  chastity, 
when  enforced  upon  one  sex  by  the  other  sex,  has  its 
roots  in  the  degradation  of  marriage.  Men  find  a  way 
of  escape;  women,  bound  in  the  coils,  stay  and  waste. 
There  is  no  escaping  from  the  truth — wherever  women 
are  in  subjection  it  is  there  that  the  idols  of  purity  and 
chastity  are  set  up  for  worship. 


IN   ROME  227 

The  fact  that  Greek  poets  and  philosophers  speak  so 
often  of  an  ideal  relationship  between  the  wife  and  the 
husband  proves  how  greatly  the  failure  of  the  accepted 
marriage  was  understood  and  depreciated  by  the  noblest 
of  the  Athenians.  The  bonds  of  the  patriarchal  system 
must  always  tend  to  break  down  as  civilisation  advances, 
and  men  come  to  think  and  to  understand  the  real  needs 
and  dependence  of  the  sexes  upon  each  other.  Aristotle 
says  that  marriage  besides  the  propagation  of  the  human 
race,  has  another  aim,  namely,  "  community  of  the  entire 
life."  He  describes  marriage  as  "  a  species  of  friend- 
ship," one,  moreover,  which  "  is  most  in  accordance  with 
Nature,  as  husband  and  wife  mutually  supply  what  is 
lacking  in  the  other."  Here  is  the  ideal  marriage,  the 
relationship  between  one  woman  and  the  one  man  that 
to-day  we  are  striving  to  attain.  To  gain  it  the  wife 
must  become  the  free  companion  of  her  husband. 

It  is  Euripides  who  voices  the  sorrows  of  women.  He 
also  foreshadows  their  coming  triumph. 

"  Back  streams  the  waves  of  the  ever  running  river, 
Life,  life  is  changed  and  the  laws  of  it  o'ertrod. 

********* 
And  woman,  yea,  woman  shall  be  terrible  in  story  ; 
The  tales  too  meseemeth  shall  be  other  than  of  yore; 
For  a  fear  there  is  that  cometh  out  of  woman  and  a  glory, 
And  the  hard  hating  voices  shall  encompass  her  no  more."  l 

IV. — In  Rome 

"The  character  of  a  people  is  only  an  eternal  becoming  .  .  . 
They  are  born  and  are  modified  under  the  influence  of  innumerable 
causes." — JEAN  FINOT. 

Of  the  position  of  women  in  Rome  in  the  pre-historic 
period  we  know  almost  nothing.  We  can  accept  that 

1  Medea,  Mr.  Gilbert  Murray's  translation. 
Q  2 


228          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

there  was  once  a  period  of  mother-rule.1  Very  little 
evidence,  however,  is  forthcoming;  still,  what  does  exist 
points  clearly  to  the  view  that  woman's  actions  in  the 
earliest  times  were  entirely  unfettered.  Probably  we 
may  accept  as  near  to  reality  the  picture  Virgil  gives  to 
us  of  Camilla  fighting  and  dying  on  the  field  of  battle. 

In  the  ancient  necropolis  of  Belmonte,  dating  from  the 
iron  age,  Professor  d'Allosso  has  recently  discovered  two 
very  rich  tombs  of  women  warriors  with  war  chariots  over 
their  remains.  '  The  importance  of  this  discovery  is 
exceptional,  as  it  shows  that  the  existence  of  the  Amazon 
heroines,  leaders  of  armies,  sung  by  the  ancient  poets, 
is  not  a  poetic  fiction,  but  an  historic  reality."  Professor 
d'Allosso  states  that  several  details  given  by  Virgil 
coincide  with  the  details  of  these  tombs.3 

From  the  earliest  notices  we  have  of  the  Roman  women 
we  find  them  possessed  of  a  definite  character  of  remark- 
able strength.  We  often  say  this  or  that  is  a  sign  of 
some  particular  period  or  people;  when  nine  times  out 
of  ten  the  thing  we  believe  to  be  strange  is  in  reality 
common  to  the  progress  of  life.  In  Rome  the  position 
of  woman  would  seem  to  have  followed  in  orderly 

1  Frazer  thinks  that  the  Roman  kingship  was  transmitted  in  the 
female  line;  the  king  being  a  man  of  another  town  or  race,  who  had 
married  the  daughter  of  his  predecessor  and  received  the  crown  through 
her.     This  hypothesis  explains  the  obscure  features  of  the  traditional 
history  of  the  Latin  kings;  their  miraculous  birth,  and  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  kings  from  their  names  appear  to  have  been  of  plebeian 
and  not  patrician  families.      The  legends  of  the  birth  of  Servius  Tullius 
which  tradition  imputes  to  a  look,  or  that  Coeculus  the  founder  of 
Proneste  was  conceived  by  a  spark  that  leaped  into  his  mother's  bosom, 
as  well  as  the  rape  of  the  Sabines,  may  be  mentioned  as  traces  pointing 
to  mother-descent  (Golden  Bough,  Pt.  I.   The  Magic  Art,  Vol.  II.  pp. 
270,  289,  312). 

2  Quoted  from  Position  of  Woman,  Actual  and  Ideal ;  Essay  on  "  The 
Position  of  Woman  in  History,"  p.  38. 


IN   ROME  229 

development  that  cyclic  movement  so  beautifully  defined 
by  Havelock  Ellis  in  the  quotation  I  have  placed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  first  section  of  this  chapter. 

The  patriarchal  rule  was  already  strongly  established 
when  Roman  history  opens;  it  involved  the  same  strict 
subordination  of  woman  to  the  one  function  of  child- 
bearing  that  we  have  found  in  the  Athenian  custom. 
The  Roman  marriage  law  developed  from  exactly  the 
same  beginning  as  did  the  Greek;  the  woman  was  the 
property  of  her  father  first  and  then  of  her  husband. 
The  marriage  ceremony  might  be  accomplished  by  one 
or  two  forms,  but  might  also  be  made  valid  without  any 
form  at  all.  For  in  regard  to  a  woman,  as  in  regard  to 
other  property,  possession  or  use  continued  for  one  year 
gave  the  right  of  ownership  to  the  husband.  This 
marriage  without  contract  or  ceremony  was  called  usus.J 
The  form  confarreatio,  or  patrician  marriage,  was  a 
solemn  union  performed  by  the  high  Pontiff  of  Jupiter 
in  the  presence  of  ten  witnesses,  in  which  the  essential 
act  was  the  eating  together  by  both  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom of  a  cake  made  of  flour,  water  and  salt.2  The 
religious  ceremony  was  in  no  way  essential  to  the  mar- 
riage. The  second  and  most  common  form,  was  called 
coemptio,  or  purchase,  and  was  really  a  formal  sale 
between  the  father  or  guardian  of  the  bride  and  the  future 

1  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  pp.  120,  201.     The  usus  was 
similar  to  the  Polynesian  marriage,  and  was  the  consecration  of  the 
free  union  after  a  year  of  cohabitation.      By  it  the  wife  passed  as 
completely  under  the  manum  mariti  as  if  she  had  eaten  of  the  sacred 
cake. 

2  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  I.  p.  210.     The  eating  of  the 
cake  would  seem  to  the  ancient  mind  to  have  been  connected  with 
magic,  and  was  regarded  as  actually  effacious  in  establishing  a  unity 
of  the  man  and  the  woman. 


230          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

husband1  Both  these  forms  transferred  the  woman 
from  the  potestas  (power)  of  her  father  into  the  manus 
(hand)  of  her  husband  to  whom  she  became  as  a  daughter, 
having  no  rights  except  through  him,  and  no  duties  except 
to  him.  The  husband  even  held  the  right  of  life  and 
death  over  the  woman  and  her  children.  It  depended 
on  his  will  whether  a  baby  girl  were  reared  or  cast  out  to 
die — and  the  latter  alternative  was  no  doubt  often  chosen. 
As  is  usual  under  such  conditions,  the  right  of  divorce 
was  allowed  to  the  husband  and  forbidden  to  the  wife. 
"If  you  catch  your  wife,"  was  the  law  laid  down  by 
Cato  the  Censor,  "  in  an  act  of  infidelity,  you  would  kill 
her  with  impunity  without  a  trial ;  but  if  she  were  to  catch 
you  she  would  not  venture  to  touch  you  with  a  finger, 
and,  indeed,  she  has  no  right."  It  is  true  that  divorce 
was  not  frequent.2  Monogamy  was  strictly  enforced. 
At  no  period  of  Roman  history  are  there  any  traces  of 
polygamy  or  concubinage.3  But  such  strictness  of  the 
moral  code  seems  to  have  been  barren  in  its  benefit  to 
women.  The  terrible  right  of  manus  was  vested  in  the 
husband  and  gave  him  complete  power  of  correction  over 
the  wife.  In  grave  cases  the  family  tribunal  had  to  be 
consulted.  "  Slaves  and  women,"  says  Mommsen,  "  were 

1  Coemption  became  in  time  purely  symbolic.     The  bride  was  de- 
livered to  the  husband,  who  as  a  formality  gave  a  few  pieces  of  silver 
as  payment ;  but  the  ceremony  proves  how  completely  the  woman  was 
regarded  as  the  property  of  the  father. 

2  Romulus,  says  Plutarch,  gave  the  husband  power  to  divorce  his 
wife  in  case  of  her  poisoning  his  children,  or  counterfeiting  his  keys, 
or    committing    adultery    (Romulus,    XXXVI.).     Valerius    Maximus 
affirms  that  divorce  was  unknown  for  520  years  after  the  foundation 
of  Rome. 

3  Hobhouse,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  211  (note).  He  states,  "  The  concubinate 
we  hear  of  in  Roman  Law  is  a  form  of  union  bereft  of  some  of  the  civil 
rights  of  marriage,  not  the  relation  of  a  married  man  to  a  secondary 
wife  or  slave-girl." 


IN  ROME  231 

not  reckoned  as  being  properly  members  of  the  com- 
munity," and  for  this  reason  any  criminal  act  committed 
by  them  was  judged  not  openly  by  the  State,  but  by  the 
male  members  of  the  woman's  family.  The  legal  right 
of  the  husband  to  beat  his  wife  was  openly  recognised. 
Thus  Egnatius  was  praised  when,  surprising  his  wife  in 
the  act  of  tasting  wine,1  he  beat  her  to  death.  And  St. 
Monica  consoles  certain  wives,  whose  faces  bore  the  mark 
of  marital  brutality,  by  saying  to  them :  "  Take  care  to 
control  your  tongues.  ...  It  is  the  duty  of  servants  to 
obey  their  masters  .  .  .  you  have  made  a  contract  of 
servitude." 2  Such  was  the  marriage  law  in  the  early 
days  of  Rome's  history. 

Now  it  followed  almost  necessarily  that  under  such 
arbitrary  regulations  of  the  sexual  relationship  some  way 
of  escape  should  be  sought.  We  have  seen  how  the 
Athenian  husbands  found  relief  from  the  restrictions  of 
legal  marriage  with  the  free  hetaira.  But  in  Rome  the 
development  of  the  freedom  of  love,  with  the  correspond- 
ing advancement  of  the  position  of  woman,  followed  a 
different  course.  The  stranger-woman  never  attained  a 
prominent  place  in  Roman  society.  It  is  the  citizen- 
women  alone  who  are  conspicuous  in  history.  Here, 
relief  was  gained  for  the  Roman  wives  as  well  as  for  the 
husbands,  by  what  we  may  call  a  clever  escape  from 
marriage  under  the  right  of  the  husband's  manus.  This 
is  so  important  that  I  must  ask  the  reader  deeply  to  con- 
sider it.  The  ideal  of  equality  and  fellowship  between 

1  Donaldson,  op.  cit.,  p.  88.  He  remarks  in  a  note,  "  The  story  may 
not  be  historical,  but  the  Romans  regarded  it  as  such."  Wives  were 
prohibited  from  tasting  wine  at  the  nsk  of  the  severest  penalties. 

•  St.  Augustine,  Confessions,  Bk.  IX.  Ch.  IX. 


232          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

women  and  men  in  marriage  can  be  realised  only  among 
a  people  who  are  sufficiently  civilised  to  understand 
the  necessity  for  the  development  and  modification  of 
legal  restrictions  that  have  become  outworn  and  use- 
less. Wherever  the  laws  relating  to  marriage  and  divorce 
are  arbitrary  and  unchanging  there  woman,  as  the  weaker 
partner,  will  be  found  to  remain  in  servitude.  It  can 
never  be  through  the  strengthening  of  moral  prohibitions, 
but  only  by  their  modification  to  suit  the  growing  needs 
of  society  that  freedom  will  come  to  women. 

The  history  of  the  development  of  marriage  in  Rome 
illustrates  this  very  forcibly.  Even  in  the  days  of  the 
Twelve  Tables  a  wholly  different  and  free  union  had 
begun  to  take  the  place  of  the  legally  recognised  marriage 
forms.  It  was  developed  from  the  early  marriage  by 
usus.  We  have  seen  that  this  marriage  depended  on 
the  cohabitation  of  the  man  and  the  woman  continued 
for  one.  year,  which  gave  the  right  of  ownership  to  the 
husband  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  possession  for  a  year 
gave  the  right  over  others'  property.  But  in  Rome,  if 
the  enjoyment  of  property  was  broken  for  any  period 
during  the  year,  no  title  to  it  arose  out  of  the  usufruct. 
This  idea  was  cleverly  applied  to  marriage  by  usus.  The 
wife  by  passing  three  nights  in  the  year  out  of  the  con- 
jugal domicile  broke  the  manus  of  the  husband  and  did 
not  become  his  property. 

When,  or  how,  it  became  a  custom  to  convert  this 
breach  of  cohabitation  into  a  system  and  establish  a  form 
of  marriage,  which  entirely  freed  the  wife  from  the  manus 
of  the  husband,  we  do  not  know.  What  is  certain  is  that 
this  new  form  of  free  marriage  by  consent  rapidly 


IN   ROME  233 

replaced  the  older  forms  of  the  coemptio,  and  even  the 
solemn  confarreatio  of  the  patricians. 

It  will  be  readily  seen  that  this  expansion  of  marriage 
produced  a  revolution  in  the  position  of  woman.  The 
bride  now  remained  a  member  of  her  own  family,  and 
though  nominally  under  the  control  of  her  father  or 
guardian,  she  was  for  all  purposes  practically  free,  having 
complete  control  over  her  own  property,  and  was,  in  fact, 
her  own  mistress. 

The  law  of  divorce  evolved  rapidly,  and  the  changes 
were  wholly  in  favour  of  women.  Marriage  was  now  a 
private  contract,  of  which  the  basis  was  consent;  and, 
being  a  contract,  it  could  be  dissolved  for  any  reason,  with 
no  shame  attached  to  the  dissolution,  provided  it  was 
carried  out  with  the  due  legal  form,  in  the  presence  of 
competent  witnesses.  Both  parties  had  equal  liberty  of 
divorce,  only  with  certain  pecuniary  disadvantages,  con- 
nected with  the  forfeiting  of  the  wife's  dowry,  for  the 
husband  whose  fault  led  to  the  divorce.1  It  was  expressly 
stated  that  the  husband  had  no  right  to  demand  fidelity 
from  his  wife  unless  he  practised  the  same  himself.  "  Such 
a  system,"  says  Havelock  Ellis,  "is  obviously  more  in 
harmony  with  modern  civilised  feeling  than  any  system 
that  has  ever  been  set  up  in  Christendom." a 

Monogamy  remained  imperative.  The  husband  was 
bound  to  support  the  wife  adequately,  to  consult  her 

1  Letourneau,  Evolution  of  Marriage,  pp.  244,  245.  In  the  ancient 
law,  when  the  crime  of  the  woman  led  to  divorce  she  lost  all  her  dowry. 
Later,  only  a  sixth  was  kept  back  for  adultery,  and  an  eighth  for  other 
crimes.  In  the  last  stages  of  the  law  the  guilty  husband  lost  the  whole 
dowry,  while  if  the  wife  divorced  without  a  cause,  the  husband  retained 
a  sixth  of  the  dowry  for  each  child,  but  only  up  to  three-sixths. 

*  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  p.  396. 


234          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

interests  and  to  avenge  any  insult  inflicted  upon  her, 
and  it  is  expressly  stated  by  the  jurist  Gaius  that  the 
wife  might  bring  an  action  for  damages  against  her  hus- 
band for  ill-treatment.1  The  woman  retained  complete 
control  of  her  dowry  and  personal  property.  A  Roman 
jurist  lays  it  down  that  it  is  a  good  thing  that  women 
should  be  dowered,  as  it  is  desirable  they  should  re- 
plenish the  State  with  children.  Another  instance  of  the 
constant  solicitude  of  the  Roman  law  to  protect  the 
wife  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  even  if  a  wife  stole  from 
her  husband,  no  criminal  action  could  be  brought 
against  her.  All  crimes  against  women  were  punished 
with  a  heavy  hand  much  more  severely  than  in  modern 
times. 

Women  gained  increasingly  greater  liberty  until  at 
last  they  obtained  complete  freedom.  This  fact  is 
stated  by  Havelock  Ellis,  whose  remarks  on  this  point 
I  will  quote. 

"Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  status  of  women  in 
Rome  rose  with  the  rise  of  civilisation  exactly  in  the  same  way 
as  in  Babylon  and  in  Egypt.  In  the  case  of  Rome,  however,  the 
growing  refinement  of  civilisation  and  the  expansion  of  the  Empire 
were  associated  with  the  magnificent  development  of  the  system 
of  Roman  law,  which  in  its  final  forms  consecrated  the  position 
of  women.  In  the  last  days  of  the  Republic  women  already  begar 
to  attain  the  same  legal  level  as  men,  and  later  the  great  Antonine 
jurisconsults,  guided  by  their  theory  of  natural  law,  reached  the 
conception  of  the  equality  of  the  sexes  as  the  principle  of  the  code 
of  equity.  The  patriarchal  subordination  of  women  fell  into  com- 
plete discredit,  and  this  continued  until,  in  the  days  of  Justinian, 
under  the  influence  of  Christianity  the  position  of  women  began 
to  suffer."  2 

1  Hecker,  History  of  Women's  Rights,  p.  12. 
1  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  p.  395. 


IN   ROME  285 

Hobhouse  gives  the  same  estimate  as  to  the  high  status 
of  women. 

"The  Roman  matron  of  the  Empire,"  he  says,  "was  more  fully 
her  own  mistress  than  the  married  woman  of  any  earlier  civilisa- 
tion, with  the  possible  exception  of  a  certain  period  of  Egyptian 
history,  and,  it  must  be  added,  the  wife  of  any  later  civilisation 
down  to  our  own  generation."  1 

It  is  necessary  to  note  that  this  freedom  of  the  Roman 
woman  was  prior  to  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  and 
that  under  its  influence  their  position  began  to  suffer.2  I 
cannot  follow  this  question,  and  can  only  say  how  entirely 
mistaken  is  the  belief  that  the  Jewish  religion,  with  its 
barbaric  view  of  the  relationship  between  the  sexes,  was 
beneficial  to  the  liberty  of  women. 

The  Roman  matrons  had  now  gained  complete  free- 
dom in  the  domestic  relationship,  and  were  permitted 
a  wide  field  for  the  exercise  of  their  activities.  They 
were  the  rulers  of  the  household;  they  dined  with  their 
husbands,  attended  the  public  feasts,  and  were  admitted 
to  the  aristocratic  clubs,  such  as  the  Gerousia  is  supposed 
to  have  been.  We  find  from  inscriptions  that  women 
had  the  privilege  of  forming  associations  and  of  electing 
women  presidents.  One  of  these  bore  the  title  of  Soda- 
litas  Pudicitice  Servandrce,  or  "  Society  for  Promoting 
Purity  of  Life."  At  Lanuvium  there  was  a  society 
known  as  the  "  Senate  of  Women."  There  was  an  inter- 
esting and  singular  woman's  society  existing  in  Rome, 
with  a  meeting-place  on  the  Quirinal,  called  Conventus 
Matronarum,  or  "  Convention  of  Mothers  of  Families." 
This  seems  to  have  been  a  self-elected  parliament  of 

1  Hobhouse,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I.  p.  213. 
1  Maine,  Ancient  Lava,  Ch.  V. 


236         THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

women  for  the  purpose  of  settling  questions  of  etiquette. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  the  accounts  that  we  have  of  this 
assembly  are  at  all  edifying,  but  its  existence  shows  the 
freedom  permitted  to  women,  and  points  to  the  important 
fact  that  they  were  accustomed  to  combine  with  one 
another  to  settle  their  own  affairs.  The  Emperor  Helio- 
gabalus  took  this  self-constituted  Parliament  in  hand 
and  gave  it  legal  powers.1 

The  Roman  women  managed  their  own  property; 
many  women  possessed  great  wealth  :  at  times  they  lent 
money  to  their  husbands,  at  more  than  shrewd  interest. 
It  appears  to  have  been  recognised  that  all  women  were 
competent  in  business  affairs,  and,  therefore,  the  wife 
was  in  all  cases  permitted  to  assume  complete  charge 
of  the  children's  property  during  their  minority,  and  to 
enjoy  the  usufruct.  We  have  instances  in  which  this 
capacity  for  affairs  is  dwelt  on,  as  when  Agricola,  the 
general  in  command  in  Britain,  shows  such  confidence 
in  his  wife  as  a  business  woman  that  he  makes  her  co-heir 
with  his  daughter  and  the  Emperor  Domitian.  Women 
were  allowed  to  plead  for  themselves  in  the  courts  of 
law.  The  satirists,  like  Juvenal,  declare  that  there  were 
hardly  any  cases  in  which  a  woman  would  not  bring  a 
suit. 

There  are  many  other  examples  which  might  be 
brought  forward  to  show  the  public  entry  of  women  into 
the  affairs  of  the  State.  There  would  seem  to  have 
been  no  limits  set  to  their  actions;  and,  moreover,  they 
acted  in  their  own  right  independently  of  men.  On  one 
occasion,  when  the  women  of  the  city  rose  in  a  body 

1  McCabe,  The  Religion  of  Women,  p.  26  et  seq. 


IN   ROME  237 

against  an  unfair  taxation,  they  found  a  successful  leader 
in  Hortensia,  the  daughter  of  the  famous  orator  Hor- 
tensus,  who  is  said  to  have  argued  their  case  before  the 
Triumvirs  with  all  her  father's  eloquence.  We  find  the 
wives  of  generals  in  camp  with  their  husbands.  The 
grafjitti  found  at  Pompeii  give  several  instances  of 
election  addresses  signed  by  women,  recommending 
candidates  to  the  notice  of  the  electors.  We  find,  too, 
in  the  municipal  inscriptions  that  the  women  in  different 
municipalities  formed  themselves  into  small  societies 
with  semi-political  objects,  such  as  the  support  of  some 
candidate,  the  rewards  that  should  be  made  to  a  local 
magistrate,  or  how  best  funds  might  be  collected  to 
raise  monuments  or  statues. 

It  is  specially  interesting  to  find  how  fine  a  use  many 
of  the  Roman  women  made  of  their  wealth  and  oppor- 
tunities. They  frequently  bestowed  public  buildings 
and  porticoes  on  the  communities  among  which  they 
lived;  they  erected  public  baths  and  gymnasia,  adorned 
temples,  and  put  up  statues.  Their  generosity  took 
other  forms.  In  Asia  Minor  we  find  several  instances 
of  women  distributing  large  sums  of  money  among  each 
citizen  within  her  own  district.  Women  presided  over 
the  public  games  and  over  the  great  religious  festivals. 
When  formally  appointed  to  this  position,  they  paid 
the  expenses  incurred  in  these  displays.  In  the  pro- 
vinces they  sometimes  held  high  municipal  offices.  Ira 
Flavia,  an  important  Roman  settlement  in  Northern 
Spain,  for  instance,  was  ruled  by  a  Roman  matron,  Lupa 
by  name.1  The  power  of  women  was  especially  great  in 
1  Santiago  (Mediaeval  Towns  Series),  p.  21. 


238          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

Asia  Minor,  where  they  received  a  most  marked  distinc- 
tion, and  were  elected  to  the  most  important  magis- 
tracies. Several  women  obtained  the  highest  Priesthood 
of  Asia,  the  greatest  honour  that  could  be  paid  to  any 
one.1 

There  is  one  final  point  that  has  to  be  mentioned.  We 
have  seen  how  the  liberty  and  power  of  the  Roman 
women  arose  from,  and  may  be  said  to  have  been  depend- 
ent on,  the  substituting  of  a  laxer  form  of  marriage  with 
complete  equality  and  freedom  of  divorce.  In  other 
words  it  was  the  breaking  down  of  the  patriarchal  system 
which  placed  women  in  a  position  of  freedom  equal  in 
all  respects  with  men.  Now,  it  has  been  held  by  many 
that,  owing  to  this  freedom,  the  Roman  women  of  the 
later  period  were  given  up  to  licence.  There  are  always 
many  people  who  are  afraid  of  freedom,  especially  for 
women.  But  if  our  survey  of  these  ancient  and  great 
civilisations  of  the  past  has  taught  us  anything  at  all,  it 
is  this:  the  patriarchal  subjection  of  women  can  never 
lead  to  progress.  We  must  give  up  a  timid  adherence 
to  past  traditions.  It  is  possible  that  the  freeing  of 
women's  bonds  may  lead  in  some  cases  to  the  foolishness 
of  licence.  I  do  not  know;  but  even  this  is  better  than 
the  wastage  of  the  mother-force  in  life.  The  child  when 
first  it  tries  to  walk  has  many  tumbles,  yet  we  do  not  for 
this  reason  keep  him  in  leading  strings.  We  know  he 
must  learn  to  walkj,  how  to  do  this  he  will  find  out  by  his 
many  mistakes. 

The  opinion  as  to  the  licentiousness  of  the  Roman 
woman  rests  mainly  on  the  statements  of  two  satirical 

1  Donaldson,  Woman,  pp.  124-125. 


IN   ROME  239 

writers,  Juvenal  and  Tacitus.      Great  pains  have  been 
taken  to  refute  the  charges  they  make,  and  the  old  view 
is  not  now  accepted.    Dill,1  who  is  quoted  by  Havelock 
Ellis,  seems  convinced  that  the  movement  of  freedom 
for  the  Roman  woman  caused  no  deterioration  of  her 
character ;  "  without  being  less  virtuous  or  respected, 
she  became  far  more  accomplished  and  attractive;  with 
fewer  restraints,  she  had  greater  charm  and  influence, 
even  in  social  affairs,  and  was  more  and  more  the  equal 
of  her  husband." 2     Hobhouse  and   Donaldson 3  both 
support  this  opinion;  the  latter  writer  considers  that 
"there  was  no   degradation  of  morals  in  the   Roman 
Empire."     The  licentiousness  of  pagan  Rome  was  cer- 
tainly not  greater  than  the  licentiousness  of  Christian 
Rome.     Sir  Henry  Maine,  in  his  valuable  Ancient  Law 
(whose  chapter  on  this  subject  should  be  read  by  every 
woman),   says,   "  The  latest  Roman  law,   so  far  as  it 
is  touched  by  the  constitution  of  the  Christian  Emperors, 
bears  some  marks  of  reaction  against  the  liberal  doctrines 
of  the  great  Antonine  jurisconsults."    This  he  attributes 
to  the  prevalent  state  of  religious  feeling  that  went  to 
"  fatal  excesses  "  under  the  influence  of  its  "  passion  for 
asceticism." 

At  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  Empire  the  enlight- 
ened Roman  law  remained  as  a  precious  legacy  to  Western 
civilisations.  But,  as  Maine  points  out,  its  humane  and 
civilising  influence  was  injured  by  its  fusion  with  the 
customs  of  the  barbarians,  and,  in  particular,  by  the 

1  Roman  Society,  p.  163. 

1  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  I.  p.  216. 

3  Woman,  p.  113. 


240          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

Jewish  marriage  system.  The  legislature  of  Europe 
"  absorbed  much  more  of  those  laws  concerning  the  posi- 
tion of  women  which  belong  peculiarly  to  an  imperfect 
civilisation.  The  law  relating  to  married  women  was 
for  the  most  part  read  by  the  light,  not  of  Roman,  but  of 
Christian  Canon  Law,  which  in  no  one  particular  departs 
so  widely  from  the  enlightened  spirit  of  the  Roman  juris- 
prudence than  in  the  view  it  takes  of  the  relations  of  the 
sexes  in  marriage."  This  was  in  part  inevitable,  Sir 
Henry  Maine  continues,  "  since  no  society  which  pre- 
serves any  tincture  of  Christian  institutions  is  likely  to 
restore  to  married  women  the  personal  liberty  conferred 
on  them  by  the  middle  Roman  law." 

It  is  not  possible  for  me  to  follow  this  question  further. 
One  thing  is  incontrovertibly  certain,  that  woman's  posi- 
tion and  her  freedom  can  best  be  judged  by  the  equity 
of  the  moral  code  in  its  bearing  on  the  two  sexes. 
Wherever  a  different  standard  of  moral  conduct  is  set 
up  for  women  from  men  there  is  something  fundament- 
ally wrong  in  the  family  relationship  needing  revolution- 
ising. The  sexual  passions  of  men  and  women  must  be 
regulated,  first  in  the  interests  of  the  social  body,  and 
next  in  the  interests  of  the  individual.  It  is  the  institu- 
tion of  marriage  that  secures  the  first  end,  and  the  remedy 
of  divorce  that  secures  the  second.  It  is  the  great  ques- 
tion for  each  civilisation  to  decide  the  position  of  the 
sexes  in  relation  to  these  two  necessary  institutions.  In 
Rome  an  unusually  enlightened  public  feeling  decided 
for  the  equality  of  woman  with  man  in  the  whole  conduct 
of  sexual  morality.  The  legist  Ulpian  expresses  this 
view  when  he  writes — "  It  seems  to  be  very  unjust  that 


IN   ROME  241 

a  man  demands  chastity  from  his  wife  while  he  himself 
shows  no  example  of  it."  *  Such  deep  understanding  of 
the  unity  of  the  sexes  is  assuredly  the  finest  testimony 
to  the  high  status  of  Roman  women. 

I  have  now  reached  the  end  of  the  inquiry  set  before 
us  at  the  opening  of  this  chapter.  I  am  fully  aware  of 
the  many  omissions,  probable  misjudgments,  and  the 
inadequacy  of  this  brief  summary.  We  have  covered  a 
wide  field.  This  was  inevitable.  I  know  that  to  under- 
stand really  the  position  of  woman  in  any  country  it  is 
necessary  to  inquire  into  all  the  customs  that  have  built 
up  its  civilisation,  and  to  gain  knowledge  upon  many 
points  outside  the  special  question  of  the  sexual  rela- 
tionships. This  I  have  not  been  able  even  to  attempt 
to  do.  I  have  thrown  out  a  few  hints  in  passing — that 
is  all.  But  the  practical  value  of  what  we  have  found 
seems  to  me  not  inconsiderable.  I  have  tried  to  avoid 
any  forcing  of  the  facts  to  fit  in  with  a  narrow  and 
artificial  view  of  my  own  opinions.  To  me  the  truth  is 
plain.  As  we  have  examined  the  often-confused  mass 
of  evidence,  as  it  throws  light  on  the  position  of  woman 
in  these  four  great  civilisations  of  antiquity,  we  find  that, 
in  spite  of  the  apparent  differences  which  separate  their 
customs  and  habits  in  the  sexual  relationships,  the  evi- 
dence, when  disentangled,  all  points  in  one  and  the  same 
direction.  In  the  face  of  the  facts  before  us  one  truth 
cries  out  its  message  :  "  Woman  must  be  free  face  to 
lace  with  man."  Has  it  not,  indeed,  become  clear  that 
a  great  part  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians  and  the 
wisdom  of  the  Babylonians,  as  also  of  the  Romans,  and, 

1  Digest,  XLVIIl.  13,  5. 


242          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

in  a  different  degree,  of  the  Greeks,  rested  in  this,  they 
thought  much  of  the  mothers  of  the  race.  Do  not  the 
records  of  these  old-world  civilisations  show  us  the 
dominant  position  of  the  mother  in  relation  to  the  life  of 
the  race?  In  all  great  ages  of  humanity  this  has  been 
accepted  as  a  central  and  sacred  fact.  We  learn  thus, 
as  we  look  backwards  to  those  countries  and  those  times 
when  woman  was  free,  by  what  laws,  habits  and  customs 
the  sons  of  mothers  may  live  long  and  gladly  in  all 
regions  of  the  earth.  The  use  of  history  is  not  alone 
to  sum  up  the  varied  experiences  of  the  past,  but  to 
enlarge  our  vision  of  the  present,  and  by  reflections  on 
that  past  to  point  a  way  to  the  future. 


PART  in 

MODERN   SECTION 

PRESENT-DAY   ASPECTS   OF  THE 
WOMAN   PROBLEM 


R  2 


CONTENTS   OF    CHAPTER   VIII 

SEX   DIFFERENCES 

The  practical  application  of  the  truths  arrived  at — A  question  to  be 
faced — The  organic  differences  between  the  sexes — Resum6  of  the 
facts  already  established — The  error  in  the  common  opinion  of  the 
true  relationship  of  the  sexes — The  male  active  and  seeking — 
The  female  passive  and  receiving — Is  this  true  ? — An  examination 
of  the  passivity  of  the  female — The  delusion  that  man  is  the  active 
partner  in  the  sexual  relationship — The  economic  factor  in  marriage 
— The  conventional  modesty  of  woman — Concealments  and  evasions 
— The  feeling  of  shame  in  love — Woman's  right  of  selection — How 
this  must  be  regained  by  women — The  new  Ethic — The  pre-natal 
claims  of  the  child — The  question  of  parenthood  as  a  religious 
question — The  responsibility  of  the  mother  as  the  child's  supreme 
parent — The  mating  of  the  future — Another  question — Woman's 
superior  moral  virtue — Its  fundamental  error — Woman's  impera- 
tive need  of  love — The  maternal  instinct — Nature's  experiments — 
The  establishment  of  two  sexes — The  feminine  and  masculine 
characters  are  an  inherent  part  of  the  normal  man  and  woman — The 
female  as  the  giver  of  life — The  deep  significance  of  this — The 
atrophy  of  the  maternal  instinct — Modern  woman  preoccupied  with 
herself — The  right  position  of  the  mother — -Sex  attraction  and  sex 
antagonism — Woman's  relation  to  sexuality — The  duel  of  the 
sexes — The  prostitution  of  love — Man's  fear  of  woman — Misogyny 
— The  rebellion  of  woman  against  man — Coercive  differentiation  of 
the  sexes  in  consequence  of  civilisation — The  ideal  of  a  one-sexed 
world — Woman  as  the  enemy  of  her  own  emancipation — The 
attempt  to  establish  a  third  sex — The  danger  of  ignoring  sex — 
The  future  progress  of  love. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SEX    DIFFERENCES 

"  Woman  is  an  integral  constituent  of  the  processes  of  civilisation, 
which,  without  her,  becomes  unthinkable.  The  present  moment  is  a 
turning  point  in  the  history  of  the  feminine  world.  The  woman  of  the 
past  is  disappearing,  to  give  place  to  the  woman  of  the  future,  instead 
of  the  bound,  there  appears  the  free  personality." — I  WAN  BLOCK. 

AT  length  we  are  ready,  clear-minded  and  well-prepared, 
to  deal  with  the  question  of  woman's  present  position 
in  society.  Our  minds  are  clear,  for  we  have  freed  them 
from  the  age-long  error  that  the  subjection  of  the  female 
to  the  male  is  a  universal  and  necessary  part  of  Nature's 
scheme;  we  are  well  prepared  to  support  an  exact  oppo- 
site view,  with  a  knowledge  founded  on  some  at  least 
of  the  facts  that  prove  this,  by  the  actual  position  that 
women  have  held  in  the  great  civilisations  of  the  past 
and  still  hold  among  primitive  peoples,  as  well  as  by  a 
sure  biological  basis.  We  are  thus  far  advanced  from 
the  uncertainty  with  which  we  started  our  inquiry;  our 
investigation  has  got  beyond  the  statement  of  evidence 
drawn  from  the  past  to  a  stage  whence  the  status  of 
woman  in  the  social  order  to-day,  and  the  meaning  of 
her  relation  to  herself,  to  man,  and  to  the  race  may 
be  estimated.  The  point  we  have  reached  is  this  :  the 
primary  value  of  the  sexes  has  to  some  extent,  at  least, 
been  reversed  under  the  patriarchal  idea,  which  has 
pushed  the  male  destructive  power  into  prominence  at 
the  expense  of  the  female  constructive  force.  This 

247 


248          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

under-valuing  of  the  one-half  of  life  has  lost  to  society 
the  service  of  a  strong  unsubjugated  motherhood. 

I  am  now,  in  this  third  and  last  section  of  my  book, 
going  to  deal  with  what  seems  to  me  the  practical  appli- 
cations of  the  truth  we  have  arrived  at.  And  the  pre- 
liminary to  this  is  a  searching  question  :  To  what  extent 
must  we  accept  a  different  natural  capacity  for  women 
and  men  ?  or,  in  other  words,  How  far  does  the  predomi- 
nant sexual  activity  of  woman  separate  her  from  man 
in  the  sphere  of  intellectual  and  social  work  ?  The  whole 
subject  is  a  large  and  difficult  one  and  is  full  of  problems 
to  which  it  is  not  easy  to  find  an  answer.  We  are  brought 
straight  up  against  the  old  controversy  of  the  organic 
differences  between  the  sexes.  This  must  be  faced 
before  we  can  proceed  further. 

To  attempt  to  do  this  we  must  return  to  the  position 
we  left  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  chapter.  We  had  then 
concluded  from  our  examination  of  the  sexual  habits  of 
insects,  mammals,  and  birds  that  a  marked  differentiation 
between  the  female  and  the  male  existed  already  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  development  of  species,  and  that 
such  divergence,  or  sex-dimorphism,  to  use  the  biological 
term,  becomes  more  and  more  frequent  and  conspicuous 
as  we  ascend  to  the  higher  types.  The  essential 
functions  of  females  and  males  become  more  separate, 
their  habits  of  life  tend  to  diverge,  and  to  the  primary 
differences  there  are  added  all  manner  of  secondary 
peculiarities.  We  found,  however,  especially  in  our 
study  of  the  familial  habits,  that  these  supplementary 
differences  could  not  be  regarded  as  fixed  and  unalter- 
able in  either  the  female  or  the  male  organism ;  but  rather 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  249 

that  the  secondary  sexual  characters  must  be  considered 
as  depending  on  environmental  conditions,  among  which 
are  included  the  occupational  activities,  the  scarcity  or 
abundance  of  the  food  supply,  the  relative  numbers  of 
the  two  sexes,  and,  in  particular,  the  brain  development 
and  the  strength  of  the  parental  emotions.  We  followed 
the  development  of  the  female  element  and  the  male 
element.  The  male  at  first  an  insignificant  addendum 
to  the  female,  but  the  long  process  of  love's  selection, 
carrying  on  the  expansion  and  aggrandisement  of  the 
male,  led  to  the  reversal  of  the  early  superiority  of  the 
female,  replacing  it  by  the  superiority  of  the  male. 
The  female  led  and  the  male  followed  in  the  evolu- 
tion process.  We  saw  that  there  are  many  curious 
alternations  in  the  superiority  of  one  sex  over  the  other 
in  size  and  also  in  power  of  function.  Below  the  line, 
among  backboneless  animals,  there  is  much  greater  con- 
stancy of  superiority  among  the  females,  and  this  pre- 
dominance persists  in  many  higher  types.  Even  among 
birds,  who  afford  the  most  perfect  examples  of  sexual 
development,  the  cases  are  not  infrequent  in  which  the 
female  equals,  and  sometimes  even  exceeds,  the  male 
in  size  and  strength  and  in  beauty  of  plumage.  The 
curious  case  of  the  Phalaropes  furnished  us  with  a 
remarkable  example  of  a  reversal  of  the  role  of  the 
sexes.  We  found  further  that  (i)  an  extravagant 
development  of  the  secondary  sexual  characters  was  not 
really  favourable  to  the  reproductive  process,  the  males 
thus  differentiated  belonging  to  a  lower  grade  of  sexual 
evolution,  being  bad  fathers  and  unsocial  in  their  con- 
duct; (2)  that  the  most  oppressed  females  are  as  a  rule 


250          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

very  faithful  wives,  and  (3)  that  the  highest  expression 
of  love  among  the  birds  must  be  sought  in  the  beautiful 
cases  in  which  the  sexes,  though  maintaining  the  essential 
constitutional  distinctions,  are,  through  the  higher  in- 
dividuation  of  the  females  more  alike,  equal  in  capacity, 
and  co-operate  together  in  the  race-work. 

It  were  well  to  keep  these  facts  clearly  in  sight;  for, 
in  the  light  of  them,  it  becomes  evident  that  there  is  an 
error  somewhere  in  the  common  opinion  of  the  true 
relationship  of  the  sexes.  Let  us  go  first  to  the  very 
start  of  the  matter.  It  is  always  held  that  the  sperm 
male-cell  represents  the  active,  and  the  germ  female-cell 
the  passive  principle  in  sexuality,  and  on  this  assumption 
there  has  been  based  by  many  a  fixed  standard  for  the 
supposed  natural  relation  between  man  and  woman — he 
active  and  seeking,  she  passive  and  receiving. 

But  is  this  really  a  fair  statement  of  the  reproduction 
process?  The  hunger-driven  male-cell  certainly  seeks 
the  female — but  what  happens  then?  The  female 
cellule,  the  ovule,  preserves  its  individuality  and  absorbs 
the  masculine  cellule,  or  is  impregnated  by  it.  Thus,  to 
use  the  term  "  passive "  in  this  connection  is  surely 
curiously  misleading;  as  well  call  the  snake  passive 
when,  waiting  motionless,  it  charms  and  draws  towards 
it  the  victim  it  will  devour.  Illustrations  are  apt  to 
mislead,  nevertheless  they  do  help  us  to  see  straight, 
and  until  we  have  come  to  find  the  truth  here  we  shall 
be  fumbling  for  the  grounds  of  any  safe  conclusion  as 
to  the  natural  relationship  of  the  female  and  the  male. 
I  think  we  must  take  a  wider  view  of  the  sexual  relation- 
ship, and  conclude  that  the  passivity  of  the  female  is 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  251 

not  real,  but  only  an  apparent  passivity.  We  may  even 
go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  female  element  has  from 
the  very  first  to  play  the  more  complex  and  difficult,  the 
more  important  part.  Herein,  at  the  very  start  of  life, 
is  typified  in  a  manner  at  once  simple  and  convincing 
that  differentiation  which  divides  so  sharply  the  sexual 
activity  of  the  female  from  that  of  the  male.  The  serious 
part  in  sex  belongs  to  the  one  who  gives  life,  while  in 
comparison  the  activity  of  the  male  can  almost  be  re- 
garded as  trifling.  And  I  believe  that  this  view  will 
be  found  to  be  amply  supported  by  facts  if  we  turn  now 
to  consider  the  later  and  human  relation  of  the  sexes. 
In  all  cases  it  is  the  same,  the  serious  business  in  sex 
belongs  to  the  woman.  As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  so, 
it  seems  to  me,  it  continues  to  the  end — it  is  woman  who 
really  leads,  she  who  in  sex  absorbs  and  uses  the  male. 
'  The  passivity  of  the  female  in  love,"  it  has  been 
said  wisely  by  Marro  in  his  fine  work  La  Puberta,  "is 
the  passivity  of  the  magnet,  which  in  its  apparent  im- 
mobility is  drawing  the  iron  towards  it.  An  intense 
energy  lies  behind  such  passivity,  an  absorbed  pre-occu- 
pation  in  the  end  to  be  attained."  1  In  the  examples 
we  have  studied  of  the  courtships  of  birds  we  saw  that 
it  is  by  no  means  a  universal  law  that  the  male  is  eager 
and  the  female  coy.  I  need  only  recall  the  instance 
noted  by  Darwin  2  in  which  a  wild  duck  forced  her  love 
on  a  male  pintail,  and  such  cases,  as  is  well  known,  are 
frequent.  High-bred  bitches  will  show  sudden  passions 
for  low-bred  or  mongrel  males.  According  to  breeders 

1  See  Havelock  Ellis,  "The  Sexual  Impulse  in  Woman,"  Psychology 
of  Stx,  Vol.  III.  p.  181,  who  gives  this  quotation  from  Marro. 
1  See  page  m. 


252          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

and  observers  it  is  the  female  who  is  always  much  more 
susceptible  of  sentimental  selection;  thus  it  is  often 
necessary  to  deceive  mares.  Among  many  primitive 
peoples  it  is  the  woman  who  takes  the  initiative  in  court- 
ship. In  New  Guinea,  for  instance,  where  women  hold 
a  very  independent  position,  "  the  girl  is  always  regarded 
as  the  seducer.  '  Women  steal  men.'  A  youth  who 
proposed  to  a  girl  would  be  making  himself  ridiculous, 
would  be  called  a  woman,  and  laughed  at  by  the  girls. 
The  usual  method  by  which  a  girl  proposes  is  to  send 
a  present  to  the  youth  by  a  third  party,  following  this 
up  by  repeated  gifts  of  food ;  the  young  man  sometimes 
waits  a  month  or  two,  receiving  presents  all  the  time,  in 
order  to  assure  himself  of  the  girl's  constancy  before 
decisively  accepting  her  advances."  * 

In  the  face  of  this,  and  many  similar  cases,  it  becomes 
an  absurdity  to  continue  a  belief  in  the  passivity  of  the 
female  as  a  natural  law  of  the  sexes.  Such  openness  of 
conduct  in  courtship  is,  of  course,  impossible  except 
where  woman  holds  an  entirely  independent  position. 
Still,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  bring  forward  similar 
manifestations  of  the  initiative  being  taken  by  the  woman 
— though  often  exercised  unconsciously  as  the  expression 
of  an  instinctive  need — in  the  artificial  courtships  of 
highly  civilised  peoples.  But  enough  has  perhaps  been 
said;  and  such  examples  can,  I  doubt  not,  be  readily 
supplied  by  each  of  my  readers  for  themselves.  I  will 
only  remark  that  the  true  nature  of  the  passivity  of  the 
woman  in  courtship  is  made  abundantly  clear  from  the 

1  Haddon,  "  Western  Tribes  of  Torres  Straits,"  Journal  of  the  Anthro- 
pological Society,  Vol.  XIX.,  Feb.  1890;   cited  by  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  p.  185. 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  253 

ease  with  which  the  pretence  is  thrown  off  in  every  case 
where  the  necessity  arises. 

Nothing  is  more  astounding  to  me  than  this  delusion 
that  the  man  is  the  active  partner  in  sex.  I  believe,  as 
I  have  once  before  stated,  that  Bernard  Shaw  1  is  right 
here  when  he  says  that  men  set  up  the  theory  to  save 
their  pride.  Having  taken  to  themselves  the  initiative 
in  all  other  matters,  they  claim  the  same  privilege  in 
love ;  and  women  have  acquiesced  and  have  helped  them, 
so  that  the  duplicity  has  become  almost  ineradicable. 
Few  women  are  brave  enough  to  admit  this  even  if  they 
have  clear  sight  to  see  the  truth ;  they  know  that  it  is  not 
permitted  to  them  to  exercise  openly  their  right  of  choice. 
They  understand  that  the  male  pride  of  possession — the 
hunter's  and  the  fighter's  joy — must  be  respected.  But 
this  makes  not  the  least  difference  to  the  result,  only  to 
the  way  in  which  that  result  is  gained.  So  the  whole  of 
our  society  is  filled  with  half-concealed  sex-snares  and 
pitfalls  set  by  women  for  the  capture  of  men.  The 
woman  waits  passive  !  Yes,  precisely,  she  often  does. 
But  exactly  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  female  spider 
when  she  has  spun  her  web,  from  which  she  knows  full 
well  the  victim  fly  will  not  escape. 

There  is  another  point  that  must  be  noticed.  Under 
our  present  sexual  relationships  the  price  the  woman  asks 
from  the  man  for  her  favours  is  marriage  as  the  only 
means  of  gaining  permanent  maintenance  for  herself  and 
for  her  children.  Now  that  these  economic  considera- 
tions have  entered  into  love  she  has  to  act  with  a  new 
and  greater  caution,  for  she  has  to  gain  her  own  ends  as 

1  Sec  page  66. 


254          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

well  as  Nature's  ends.  In  the  matriarchal  society  the 
girl  was  allowed  openly  to  pick  her  lover,  and  forthwith 
he  went  with  her.  But  to  the  modern  woman,  under  the 
patriarchal  ideals,  if  she  shows  the  modesty  that  con- 
vention requires  of  her,  all  that  is  permitted  is  the  invita- 
tion of  a  lowered  eyelid,  a  look,  or  perchance  a  touch, 
at  one  time  given,  at  another  withheld. 

Now,  I  find  it  the  opinion  of  most  of  my  men  friends 
that  such  half -concealed  encouragements,  such  evasions 
and  drawings  back  are  a  necessary  part  of  the  love-play 
— the  woman's  unconscious  testing  of  the  fussy  male. 
There  is  one  friend,  a  doctor,  who  tells  me  that  the 
woman's  dissimulation  of  her  own  inclination  has  come 
to  be  a  secondary  sexual  characteristic,  a  manifestation 
of  the  operation  of  sexual  selection,  diluted,  perhaps, 
and  altered  by  civilisation,  but  an  essential  feature  in 
every  courtship,  so  that  the  woman  follows  a  true  and 
biologically  valuable  instinct  when  she  temporises  and 
dissembles,  and  tests  and  provokes,  and  entices  and 
repels.  She  is  proving  herself  and  testing  her  lovers 
before  she  permits  that  awful  "  merging  "  that  no  after- 
thought can  undo. 

Now,  on  the  face  of  it  this  seems  true.  There  is  a 
passionate  uncertainty  that  all  true  lovers  feel.  It  is, 
I  think,  a  holding  back  from  the  yielding  up  of  the 
individual  ego — an  unconscious  revolt  from  the  sacri- 
fice claimed  by  the  creative  force  before  which  both  the 
woman  and  the  man  alike  are  helpless  agents.  It  is  very 
difficult  to  find  the  truth.  Throughout  Nature  love  only 
fulfils  its  purpose  after  much  expenditure  of  energy. 
But  dissimulation  on  the  side  of  the  woman  is  not,  I 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  255 

am  sure,  a  true  or  necessary  incitement  to  love.  Love, 
as  I  see  it,  is  a  breaking  down  of  the  boundaries  of 
oneself,  the  casting  aside  of  reserve  and  defences,  with 
a  necessary  throwing  off  of  every  concealment. 

In  our  restricted  society,  where  the  sexual  instincts 
are  at  once  both  unnaturally  repressed  and  unnaturally 
stimulated,  this  openness  may  not  be  possible.  Conceal- 
ments and  evasions  may  be  an  aid  at  one  stage  of  sex 
evolution.  Just  as  the  half-concealed  body  is  often  a 
more  powerful  sensual  stimulus  than  nudity;  the  less 
one  sees,  the  more  does  the  imagination  picture.  But 
the  need  of  such  artificial  excitants  speaks  of  the  poverty 
of  love  and  not  of  its  fullness.  For  most  of  us  the 
strain  of  sensuality  in  our  loves  is  very  strong.  To  have 
lived  in  the  bonds  of  slavery  makes  us  slaves,  and  the 
price  that  woman  has  paid  is  the  sacrifice  of  her  purity. 
The  feeling  of  shame  in  love,  like  chastity,  arose  in  the 
property  value  of  the  woman  to  her  owner;  it  is  no  more 
a  part  of  the  woman's  character  than  of  the  man's. 
Woman  must  capture  her  mate  because  the  race  must 
perish  without  her  travail ;  she  is  fulfilling  Nature's  ends, 
as  well  as  her  own,  whatever  means  she  uses. 

So  I  am  certain  that,  as  woman's  right  of  selection 
is  given  back  to  her  to  exercise  without  restraint,  we 
shall  see  a  freer  and  more  beautiful  mating.  With 
greater  liberty  of  action  she  will  be  far  better  armed 
with  knowledge  to  demand  a  finer  quality  in  her  lovers. 
Her  unborn  children  importuning  her,  her  choice  will  be 
guided  by  the  man's  fitness  alone,  not,  as  now  it  is,  by 
his  capacity  and  power  for  work  and  protection.  We 
are  only  awakening  to  the  terrible  evils  of  these  powerful 


256          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

economic  restraints,  which  now  limit  the  woman's  range 
of  choice.  It  is  this  wastage  of  the  Life-force  that,  as 
I  believe,  above  all  else  has  driven  women  into  revolt. 

The  free  power  of  Selection  in  Love !  Yes ;  that  is 
the  true  Female  Franchise.  It  must  be  regained  by 
woman,  to  be  used  by  her  to  ennoble  the  sex  relation 
and  thereby  to  cleanse  society  of  the  unfit.  The  means 
by  which  this  most  important  end  can  be  attained  will 
be  brought  about  by  giving  woman  such  training  and 
education  and  civic  rights,  as  well  as  the  framing  of  such 
laws  and  changes  in  the  rights  of  property  inheritance, 
as  shall  render  her  economically  independent.  Existing 
marriage  is  a  pernicious  survival  of  the  patriarchal  age. 
The  "  patriarch's  "  wife  was  significantly  reckoned  in  the 
same  category  with  a  man's  "  ox  "  and  his  "  ass,"  which 
any  other  male  was  forbidden  "to  covet."  The  wife 
was  the  husband's — her  owner's  private  property — and 
the  curse  of  this  dependence  and  the  old  ferocious 
potestas  and  manus,  from  which  the  Roman  wife  freed 
herself,  are  upon  women  to-day.  With  the  regaining  of 
their  economic  freedom  by  women — by  whatever  means 
this  is  to  be  accomplished — a  truer  marriage  will  be 
brought  within  reach  of  every  one,  and  the  sexual  rela- 
tionship will  be  freed  from  the  jealous  chains  of  owner- 
ship that  cause  such  bitter  mistrusts  in  the  wreckage  of 
our  loves. 

Mating  will  be  a  much  more  complex  affair,  and  yet 
one  much  more  directly  in  harmony  with  the  welfare  of 
the  race.  A  recognition  of  the  pre-natal  claims  of  the 
child  is  the  new  Ethic  that  is  slowly  but  surely  dawning 
on  womankind  and  on  man.  He  who  destroys  human 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  257 

life,  however  unfit  that  life  may  be,  is  remorselessly 
punished  by  society,  but  the  woman  and  man  who  beget 
diseased  and  imbecile  children — the  necessarily  unfit — 
are  not  only  exonerated  from  sin,  but  applauded  by  both 
Church  and  State.  Could  moral  inconstancy  go  further 
than  this  ?  It  is  only  in  the  begetting  of  men  that  breed- 
ing from  the  worst  stocks  may  be  said  to  be  the  rule. 
As  long  as  in  our  ideas  on  these  questions  superstition 
remains  the  guide  there  is  nothing  to  hope  for  and  much 
to  fear.  The  new  ideal  is  only  beginning,  and  beginning 
with  a  tardiness  that  is  a  reproach  to  human  foresight. 
But  herein  lies  the  glad  hope  of  the  future.  I  place 
my  trust  in  the  enlightened  conscience  of  the  economic- 
ally emancipated  mothers,  and  in  the  awakened  fathers, 
to  work  out  some  scheme  of  sexual  salvation  as  will 
ensure  a  race  of  sounder  limb  and  saner  intelligence  than 
any  that  has  yet  appeared  in  our  civilisation. 

It  is  woman,  not  man,  who  must  fix  the  standard  in 
sex.  The  problems  of  love  are  linked  on  to  the  needs 
of  the  race.  Nature  has,  as  we  have  seen,  made  various 
experiments  as  to  which  of  the  sexes  was  to  be  the 
predominant  partner  in  this  relation.  But  the  decision 
has  been  made  in  the  favour  of  the  mother.  She  it  is 
who  has  to  play  the  chief  part  in  the  racial  life.  There 
is  no  getting  away  from  this,  in  spite  of  the  many  absurd- 
ities that  man  has  set  up,  as,  for  instance,  St.  Paul's 
grandmotherly  old  Tory  dogma,  making  "  man  the  head 
of  the  woman." 

The  differences  between  woman  and  man  are  deep 
and  fundamental.  And,  lest  there  be  any  who  fear  the 
giving  back  to  woman  of  her  power,  let  me  say  that  in 


258          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

this  change  there  will  be  no  danger  of  unsexing,  least 
of  all  of  the  unsexing  of  woman.  Nature  would  not 
permit  it,  even  if  she  in  any  foolishness  of  revolt  sought 
such  a  result,  for  it  is  her  body  that  is  the  sanctuary  of 
the  race.  Love  and  courtship  will  not,  indeed,  be  robbed 
of  any  charm,  that  would  be  fatal,  but  they  will  be  freed 
from  the  mockeries  of  love  that  have  always  selfishness 
in  them,  jealous  resentments  and  fearing  distrusts — the 
man  of  the  woman,  not  less  than  the  woman  of  the  man. 
To-day  coquetry  serves  not  only  as  a  prelude  to  marriage, 
but  very  often  serves  as  a  substitute  for  it;  an  escape 
from  the  payment  of  the  sacrifices  which  fulfilled  love 
claims.  There  is  a  confusion  of  motives  which  now  force 
women  and  men  alike  from  their  service  to  the  race.  Sex 
must  be  freed  from  all  unworthy  necessities.  Courtship 
must  be  regarded,  not  as  a  game  of  chance,  but  as  the 
opening  act  in  the  drama  of  life.  And  the  woman  who 
comes  to  know  this  must  play  her  part  consciously,  realis- 
ing in  full  what  she  is  seeking  for;  then,  indeed,  no  longer 
will  her  sex  be  to  her  a  light  or  a  saleable  thing.  At 
present  economic  and  social  injustices  are  strangling 
millions  of  beautiful  unborn  babes. 

There  is  another  error  that  I  would  wish  to  clear  up 
now.  It  is  a  tenet  of  common  belief  that  in  all  matters 
of  sex-feeling  and  sex-morality  the  woman  is  different 
from,  and  superior  to,  the  man.  I  find  in  the  writings  of 
almost  all  women  on  sex-subjects,  not  to  speak  of  popular 
novels,  an  insistence  on  men's  grossness,  with  a  great  deal 
in  contrast  about  the  soulful  character  of  woman's  love. 
Even  so  illuminated  a  writer  as  Ellen  Key  emphasises 
this  supposed  trait  of  the  woman  again  and  again. 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  259 

Another  woman  writer,  Miss  May  Sinclair,  in  a  brilliant 
"  Defence  of  Men  "  (English  Review,  July  1912),  speaks 
of  "the  superior  virtue  of  women"  as  being  "primor- 
dially  and  fundamentally  Nature's  care."  And  again, 
woman  "has  monopolised  virtue  at  man's  expense," 
which  the  writer,  with  the  most  perfect  humour  and  irony, 
though  apparently  quite  unconscious,  regards  as  "  men's 
tragedy."  The  woman  has  received  the  laurel  crown  by 
"  Nature's  consecration  of  her  womanhood  to  suffering," 
the  man  "  has  paid  with  his  spiritual  prospects  as  she  has 
paid  with  her  body." 

Now,  from  this  view  of  the  sex  relationship  I  most 
utterly  dissent.  I  believe  that  any  difference  in  virtue, 
even  where  it  exists  in  woman,  is  not  fundamental,  that 
it  is  against  Nature's  purpose  that  it  should  be  so ;  rather 
it  has  arisen  as  a  pretence  of  necessity,  because  it  has 
been  expected  of  her,  nourished  in  her,  and  imposed 
on  her  by  the  unnatural  prohibitions  of  religious  and 
social  conventions.  The  female  half  of  life  has  not 
been  pre-ordained  to  suffer  any  more  than  the  male  half  : 
this  belief  has  done  more  to  destroy  the  conscience  of 
woman  than  any  other  single  error.  You  have  only  to 
repeat  any  lie  long  enough  to  convince  even  yourself  of 
its  truth.  But  assuredly  free  woman  will  have  to  yield 
up  her  martyr's  crown. 

I  grant  willingly  that  men  often  talk  brutally  of  sex, 
but  I  am  certain  that  few  of  them  think  brutally.  We 
women  are  so  easily  deceived  by  the  outside  appearance 
of  things.  The  man  who  calls  "  a  spade  a  spade  "  is 
not  really  inferior  to  him  who  terms  it  "an  agricultural 
implement  for  the  tilling  of  the  soil."  And  women  also 


s  2 


260          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

express  their  sensuality  in  orgies  of  emotion,  in  hypo- 
crisies of  chastity,  and  in  many  other  ways  that  are 
really  nothing  but  a  subtle  sensuality  disguised. 

I  confess  that  I  doubt  very  much  the  existence  of  any 
special  soulful  character  in  woman's  love.  I  wish  that 
I  didn't.  But  my  experience  forces  me  to  admit  that 
this  is  but  another  of  those  delusions  which  woman  has 
wrapped  around  herself.  Of  course  I  may  be  wrong. 
I  find  Professor  Forel  and  other  distinguished  psycho- 
logists lending  their  support  to  this  idol  of  the  woman's 
superior  sexual  virtue.  Krafft  Ebing  goes  much  further, 
holding  "  that  woman  is  naturally  and  organically  frigid." 
It  may  be  then  that  some  difference  does  exist  in  the 
driving  force  of  passion  in  men  and  women.  I  do  not 
know  the  exact  character  of  men's  love  to  compare  it 
with  my  own,  and  I  hesitate  to  write  with  that  assurance 
of  the  passions  of  the  other  sex  with  which  they  have 
written  of  mine.  Yet  I  believe  that  the  male  receiving 
life  from  the  female  is  not  more  mindful  of  the  physical 
needs  of  love  than  the  woman,  though  possibly  she  has 
less  understanding  of  its  joys.  For  the  woman  with  a 
much  more  complex  sexual  nature  is  carried  by  passion 
further  than  the  male;  the  continuance  of  life  rests  with 
her.  Under  this  imperative  compulsion  woman,  if  needs 
be,  will  break  every  commandment  in  the  Decalogue 
and  suffer  no  remorse  for  having  done  so.  I  think  this 
seeking  to  give  life  remains  a  necessary  element  in  the 
loves  of  all  women.  At  its  lowest  it  will  stoop  to  any 
unscrupulousness.  Bernard  Shaw  tells  us  that  "if 
women  were  as  fastidious  as  men,  morally  or  physically, 
there  would  be  an  end  to  the  race."  Perhaps  this  is  true. 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  261 

Yet  I  think  woman's  love  is  always  different  in  its 
fundamental  essence  from  the  excitements  of  the  male. 
We  throw  the  whole  burden  of  sex-desire  on  to  men, 
because  we  have  not  yet  faced  the  truth  that  they  are  our 
helpless  agents  in  carrying  on  Nature's  most  urgent  work. 
It  has  been  so  from  the  beginning,  since  that  first 
primordial  mating  when  the  hungry  male-cell  gained 
renewal  of  life  from  the  female,  it  is  so  still,  I  believe 
it  will  be  thus  to  the  end. 

It  is  when  we  come  to  the  emotions  and  actions  con- 
nected with  the  maternal  instinct  in  woman  that  we  reach 
the  real  point  of  the  difference  between  the  sexes.  In 
its  essential  essence  this  belongs  to  women  alone.  The 
male  may  be  infected  with  the  reproduction  energy  (we 
have  witnessed  this  in  its  finest  expression  among  birds, 
where  the  parental  duties  are  shared  in  and,  in  some 
cases,  carried  out  entirely  by  the  male),  but  man  pos- 
sesses, as  yet,  its  faint  analogy  only.  It  is  the  most 
primary  of  all  woman's  qualities,  and,  being  funda- 
mental, it  is,  I  believe,  unalterable,  and  any  attempt 
to  minimise  its  action  is  very  unlikely  to  lead  to  progress. 
It  is  a  two-sexed  world;  women  and  men  are  not  alike; 
I  hope  that  they  never  will  be. 

This  radical  truth  is  so  plain.  Yet  it  seems  to  me 
that  in  the  present  confusion  many  women  are  in  danger 
of  overlooking  it.  We  saw  in  an  earlier  chapter  how  very 
early  in  the  development  of  life  it  was  found  by  Nature's 
slow  but  certain  experiments  that  the  establishment  of 
two  sexes  in  different  organisms,  and  their  differentia- 
tion, was  to  the  immense  advantage  of  progress.  This 
initial  difference  leads  to  the  functional  distinctions 


202          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

between  the  female  and  the  male,  but  it  goes  much 
further  than  this,  finding  its  expression  in  many  second- 
ary qualities,  not  on  the  physical  side  alone,  but  on  the 
mental  and  psychical,  and  is,  indeed,  a  saturating  in- 
fluence that  determines  the  entire  development  of  the 
organism  into  the  feminine  or  the  masculine  character. 
Take  again  the  fact  that  this  dynamic  action  of  sex  has 
manifested  itself  in  a  continual  progress  through  the 
uncounted  centuries.  Developed  by  love's  selection,  the 
differentiation  of  the  sexes  increased  in  the  evolution 
of  species,  and  as  the  differentiation  increased  the 
attraction  also  increased,  until  in  all  the  higher  forms 
we  find  two  markedly  different  sexes,  strongly  drawn 
together  by  the  magnetism  of  sex,  and  fulfilling  together 
their  separate  uses  in  the  reproductive  process.  These 
are  the  natural  features  of  sex-distinction  and  sex-union. 
The  belief,  therefore,  is  forced  upon  us  that  the 
characteristic  feminine  and  masculine  characters  are  an 
inherent  part  of  the  normal  woman  and  man,  a  duality 
that  goes  back  to  the  very  threshold  of  sexuality.  So 
Nature  created  them,  female  and  male  created  she  them. 
To  change  the  metaphor,  we  have  the  woman  and  the 
man = the  unit — the  race.  While  there  is  no  fixing  of  the 
precise  nature  of  this  constitutional  difference  between  the 
two  sexes,  we  may  yet,  broadly  speaking,  reach  the  truth. 
The  female,  as  the  giver  and  keeper  of  life,  is  relatively 
more  constructive,  relatively  less  disruptive  than  the 
male.  It  is  here,  I  believe,  we  touch  the  spring  of  those 
sex  differences,  which  do  exist,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to 
explain  them  away  between  the  woman  and  the  man.  It 
is  a  quality  that  crops  up  in  many  diverse  directions  and 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  263 

penetrates    into    every     expression     of     the     feminine 
character. 

Now,  we  cannot  get  away  from  a  difference  so  funda- 
mental, so  primordial  as  this.  The  consecration  of  the 
woman's  body  as  the  sanctuary  of  life — that  perpetual 
payment  in  giving  is  not  safely  to  be  altered.  And  this 
I  contest  against  all  the  Feminists :  the  real  need  of  the 
normal  woman  is  the  full  and  free  satisfaction  of  the 
race-instinct.  Do  I  then  accept  the  subjection  of  the 
woman.  Assuredly  not !  To  me  it  is  manifest  that  it 
is  just  because  of  her  sex-needs  and  her  sex-power  that 
woman  must  be  free.  To  leave  such  a  force  to  be  used 
without  understanding  is  like  giving  a  weapon  to  a  child, 
in  whose  hands  a  cartridge  suddenly  goes  off,  leaving 
the  empty  and  smoking  shell  in  his  trembling  hands. 

It  is  well  to  remember,  however,  that  for  all  women 
there  is  conceivably  no  one  simple  rule.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  the  maternal  instincts  may  be  overlaid  and 
even  destroyed,  being  replaced  by  others  more  clearly 
masculine.  In  our  artificial  social  state  this  is  indeed 
bound  to  be  so.  It  may  be  regretted,  but  it  cannot  be 
blamed.  And  each  woman  must  be  free  to  make  her  own 
choice;  no  man  may  safely  decide  for  her;  she  must 
give  life  gladly  to  be  able  to  give  it  well.  This  is  why 
any  effort  to  force  maternity,  even  as  an  ideal,  upon 
women  is  so  utterly  absurd.  To-day  woman  is  coming 
slowly  and  hesitatingly  to  a  new  consciousness  of  herself, 
and  this  at  present  is  perhaps  preoccupying  her  attention. 
But  the  freed  woman  of  to-morrow  will  have  no  need  to 
centre  her  thoughts  in  herself,  for  by  that  time  she  will 
understand.  There  will  come  a  day  when  women  will 


264          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

no  longer  live  in  a  prison  walled  up  with  fear  of  love 
and  life.  And  when  she  has  done  with  discovering  her- 
self and  playing  at  conquests,  she  will  come  to  the  most 
glorious  day  of  all,  when  she  will  know  herself  for  what 
she  is.  And  to  those  of  us  who  see  already  the  goal 
the  way  is  surely  clear — let  us  work  to  find  how  best  it 
can  be  made  easy  for  all  women  to  love  gladly  and  to 
bring  forth  their  children  in  joy. 

Hitherto,  dating  from  the  times  of  the  subjection  of 
mother-right  to  father-right,  the  woman's  insecure  posi- 
tion, with  her  need  of  protection  during  the  period  of 
motherhood,  has  forced  her  into  a  state  of  dependence 
and  subordination  to  men,  which  has  accentuated  and 
made  permanent  that  physical  disadvantage  which,  apart 
from  motherhood,  would  scarcely  exist,  and  even  with 
motherhood  would  not  become  a  source  of  weakness, 
under  a  wiser  social  organisation,  which,  understanding 
the  primary  importance  of  the  mother,  so  arranged  its 
domestic  and  social  relationships  as  to  place  its  women 
in  a  position  of  security.  We  have  seen  how  this  was 
done  in  Egypt,  and  how  happy  were  the  results;  we 
have  seen,  too,  that  among  all  primitive  peoples  women 
are  practically  as  strong  as  the  men,  and  as  capable  in 
the  social  duty  of  work.  It  is  only  under  the  fully  estab- 
lished patriarchal  system,  with  its  unequal  development 
of  the  sexes,  that  motherhood  is  a  source  of  weakness  to 
women.  From  the  time  that  society  comes  again  to 
recognise  the  position  of  mothers  and  their  right  as  the 
bearers  of  strength  to  the  race,  not  only  to  protection 
while  they  are  fulfilling  that  essential  function  for  the 
community,  but  to  their  freedom  after  they  have  fulfilled 
it — the  same  freedom  that  men  claim  for  the  work  they 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  255 

do  for  the  community — from  that  time  will  arise  a  new 
freedom  of  women  which  will  once  again  unite  mother - 
right  with  father-right.  This  change  will  touch  and 
vitally  affect  many  of  the  deepest  problems  of  the  sexual 
relationship  and  the  race. 

We  hear  much  to-day  of  women,  and  also  men,  being 
over-sexed ;  to  me  it  seems  much  nearer  the  truth  to  say 
we  are  wrongly  sexed.  It  is  unquestionable  that  the 
progress  of  civilisation  has  resulted  in  a  markedly  accen- 
tuated differentiation  between  the  sexes,  which,  through 
inheritance  and  custom,  has  become  continually  more 
sharply  defined.  Now,  up  to  a  certain  point  sex  differ- 
ences lead  to  sex-attraction,  but  whenever  such  varia- 
bility— whether  initiated  by  some  natural  process  or  by 
some  intentional  guidance  of  the  pressure  of  civilisation 
— is  unduly  exaggerated,  the  way  is  opened  up  for  sex- 
antagonism.  That  this,  indeed,  occurs  may  be  seen  from 
the  fact  we  have  already  established,  that  an  exaggerated 
outgrowth  of  the  secondary  sexual  characters  is  not 
really  favourable  to  development;  the  species  thus  differ- 
entiated being  bad  parents  and  unsocial  in  their  conduct. 
The  large  felines,  which  are  often  inclined  to  commit 
infanticide  in  their  own  interests,  the  male  turkey  and 
other  members  of  the  gallinaceae  afford  examples,  and 
so  does  the  female  phalarope,  whose  maternal  instincts 
are  completely  atrophied.  Another  illustration  may  be 
drawn  from  the  debased  position  of  the  Athenian 
women,  where  the  sharp  separation  between  the  sexes 
led,  without  doubt,  not  only  to  the  debasing  of  the 
marriage  relationship,  but  to  the  establishment  of  the 
hetaira,  and  also  to  the  common  practice  of  homo-sexual 
love. 


266          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

Under  our  present  civilisation,  and  mainly  owing  to 
the  unnatural  relation  of  the  sexes,  which  has  undulv 

/ 

emphasised  certain  qualities  of  excessive  femininity,  sex- 
feeling  has  been  at  once  over-accentuated  and  under- 
disciplined.  Thus,  an  extreme  outward  sex-attraction 
has  come  to  veil  but  thinly  a  deep  inward  sex-antipathy, 
until  it  seems  almost  impossible  that  women  and  men 
can  ever  really  understand  one  another.  Herein  lie  the 
roots,  as  I  believe,  of  much  of  the  brutal  treatment  of 
women  by  men  and  the  contempt  in  which  too  often  they 
are  held.  For  what  is  the  truth  here?  In  this  so-called 
"  duel  of  sex,"  while  woman's  moral  equality  has  not 
been  recognised,  women  have  employed  their  sex- 
differences  as  the  most  effective  weapon  for  compassing 
their  own  ends,  and  men  in  the  mass — unmindful  of  the 
truth  that  love  is  an  understanding  of  the  contrasted 
natures,  a  solution  of  the  riddle — have  wished  to  have  it 
so.  What  significance  arises  out  of  this  in  the  so-much- 
lauded  cry,  "  Woman's  influence  !  "  "  By  thy  submis- 
sion rule,"  really  means  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred,  "  Rule  by  sex-seduction  and  flattery."  Yes, 
we  women  cannot  burk  the  truth — the  seduction  and 
flattery  of  man  by  woman  is  writ  large  over  the  face  of 
our  present  society,  it  speaks  in  our  literature  and  in  our 
art.  It  is  to  this  prostitution  of  love  that  sex-differences 
have  carried  us. 

There  is,  of  course,  nothing  new  in  these  conditions; 
and  there  have  always  been  times  when  men  have 
rebelled  against  this  sexual  tyranny  of  woman.  Miso- 
gyny is  an  old  story.  It  is  Euripides  who  betrays  to  us 
the  real  meaning  of  such  revolt.  In  a  fragment  of  his 
we  read,  The  most  invincible  of  all  things  is  a  woman  ! 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  267 

Men  are  so  little  sure  of  themselves  that  they  fear  suffer- 
ing from  woman  an  annihilation  of  their  own  personality. 
There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this;  rather  it  is  one  of 
Nature's  laws  that  may  not  be  overlooked,  traceable  back 
to  that  first  coalescence  when  the  female  cellule  absorbs 
the  male.  In  one  way  or  another,  for  Nature's  ends  or 
for  her  own,  the  female  will  always  absorb  the  male — 
the  woman  the  man ;  she  is  the  river  of  life,  he  but  the 
tributary  stream.  Paracelsus  long  ago  gave  utterance  to 
the  profound  truth,  "  Woman  is  nearer  to  the  world  than 
man."  Hence  the  army  of  misogynists — a  Schopen- 
hauer, a  Strindberg,  a  Weininger,  even  a  great  Tolstoi, 
alike  moved  in  a  rebellion  of  disillusion,  or  satiety, 
against  the  power  of  woman  that  has  been  turned  into 
turbid  channels  of  misusage.  Thence,  too,  the  hateful 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  fundamentally  sinful,  evil, 
devilish  nature  of  woman. 

This  rebellion  of  men,  and  their  efforts  to  free  them- 
selves from  the  thrall  of  women  has  been  of  little  avail. 
We  have  reached  now  a  new  stage  in  the  age-long  conflict 
of  the  sexes — the  rebellion  of  the  woman.  There  has 
come  a  time  when  the  old  cry,  "  Woman,  what  have  I  to 
do  with  you  ? "  is  being  changed.  It  is  woman  who  is 
whispering  to  herself  and  to  her  sisters,  and,  as  she  gains 
in  courage,  crying  it  aloud,  "  Men,  what  have  we  to  do 
with  you?  We  belong  to  ourselves."  It  is  to  this 
impasse  in  the  confusion  and  antagonism  of  the  present 
moment  of  transition  that  sex-differences  are  bringing 
us. 

In  face  of  this  we  may  well  pause. 

What  to  do  is  another  matter.     But  I  am  mainly  con- 
cerned just  now  in  trying  to  see  facts  clearly.     And  to 


268          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

me  it  often  seems  that  woman  is  in  grave  danger  to-day 
of  becoming  intoxicated  with  herself.  She  stands  out 
self -affirming,  postulating  her  own — or  what  she  thinks 
to  be  her  own — nature.  In  her,  perhaps  too-sudden, 
awakening  to  an  entirely  new  existence  of  a  free  person- 
ality, an  over-consciousness  of  her  rights  has  arisen, 
causing  a  confusion  of  her  instincts,  so  she  fails  to  see 
the  revelation  begotten  in  her  inmost  self. 

There  is  no  getting  away  from  the  truth  that  there  is 
this  vital  organic  distinction  between  woman  and  man ; 
and  further,  that  this  sexual  difference  does,  and  it  is  well 
that  it  should,  find  its  expression  in  a  large  number  of 
detailed  characters  of  femaleness  and  maleness,  various 
in  value,  some,  perhaps,  trivial,  and  some  important. 
These  characters  are  natural  in  origin  and  natural  also  in 
having  survived  ages  of  eliminative  selection.  But  the 
point  I  want  to  make  clear  is  that,  side  by  side  with  these 
fundamental  differences,  have  arisen  in  women  a  number 
of  what  may  be  called  coercive  differentiations,  inconsis- 
tent with,  and  absolutely  hurtful  to  the  natural  distinc- 
tions, being  destructive  to  the  love  and  understanding 
of  woman  and  man,  and  not  less  destructive  to  the  vigour 
of  the  race.  This  misdifferentiation  of  women,  it  is  true, 
is  passing,  but  the  progressive  gain  in  this  direction  is 
counterbalanced  by  a  new  and  hardly  less  grave  danger. 

I  am  dealing  here  with  what  seems  to  me  to  be  a  peril- 
ous quicksand  in  woman's  struggle  for  free  development. 
To  hear  many  women  talk  it  would  appear  that  the  new 
ideal  was  a  one-sexed  world.  A  great  army  of  women 
have  espoused  the  task  of  raising  their  sex  out  of  subjec- 
tion. For  such  a  duty  the  strength  and  energy  of 


SEX   DIFFERENCES  269 

passion  is  required.  Can  this  task  be  performed  if  the 
woman  to  any  extent  indulges  in  sex — otherwise  subjec- 
tion to  man.  Sexuality  debases,  even  reproduction  and 
birth  are  regarded  as  "  nauseating."  Woman  is  not  free, 
only  because  she  has  been  the  slave  to  the  primitive  cycle 
of  emotions  which  belong  to  physical  love.  The  renun- 
ciation, the  conquest  of  sex — it  is  this  that  must  be 
gained.  As  for  man,  he  has  been  shown  up,  women  have 
found  him  out;  his  long-worn  garments  of  authority  and 
his  mystery  and  glamour  have  been  torn  into  shreds- 
woman  will  have  none  of  him. 

Now  obviously  these  are  over-statements,  yet  they  are 
the  logical  outcome  of  much  of  the  talk  that  one  hears. 
It  is  the  visible  sign  of  our  incoherence  and  error,  and 
in  the  measure  of  these  follies  we  are  sent  back  to  seek 
the  truth.  Women  need  a  robuster  courage  in  the  face 
of  love,  a  greater  faith  in  their  womanhood,  and  in  the 
scheme  of  Life.  Nothing  can  be  gained  from  the  child's 
folly  in  breaking  the  toys  that  have  momentarily  ceased 
to  please.  The  misogamist  type  of  woman  cannot  fail 
to  prove  as  futile  as  the  misogamist  man.  Not  "  Free 
from  man"  is  the  watch-cry  of  women's  emancipation 
that  surely  is  to  be,  but  "  Free  with  man." 

Let  us  pass  to  a  somewhat  different  instance — the 
perversion  of  the  natural  instincts  of  woman  which  has 
led  to  the  attempt  to  establish  what  has  been  called  a 
"  third  sex," x  a  type  of  woman  in  whom  the  sexual 

1  E.  von  Wolzogen  gives  this  name,  The  Third  Sex,  to  a  romance 
in  which  he  describes  a  kind  of  barren,  stunted  woman,  capable,  how- 
ever, of  holding  her  place  in  all  work  in  competition  with  men.  The 
writer  compares  these  types  of  women  to  the  workers  among  ants  and 
bees.  See  p.  62.  I  have  quoted  from  Iwan  Bloch,  The  Sexual  Life  of 
Our  Times,  p.  13. 


270          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

differences  are  obscured  or  even  obliterated — a  woman 
who  is,  in  fact,  a  temperamental  neuter.  Economic  con- 
ditions are  compelling  women  to  enter  with  men  into 
the  fierce  competition  of  our  disordered  social  State. 
Partly  due  to  this  reason,  though  much  more,  as  I  think, 
to  the  strong  stirring  in  woman  of  her  newly-discovered 
self,  there  has  arisen  what  I  should  like  to  call  an  over- 
emphasised Intellectualism.  Where  sex  is  ignored  there 
is  bound  to  lurk  danger.  Every  one  recognises  the 
significance  of  the  advance  in  particular  cases  of  women 
towards  a  higher  intellectual  individuation,  and  the 
social  utility  of  those  women  who  have  been  truly  the 
pioneers  of  the  new  freedom;  but  this  does  not  lessen 
at  all  the  disastrous  influence  of  an  ideal  which  holds 
up  the  renunciation  of  the  natural  rights  of  love  and 
activities  of  women,  and  thus  involves  an  irreparable  loss 
to  the  race  by  the  barrenness  of  many  of  its  finest  types. 
The  significance  of  such  Intellectuals  must  be  limited, 
because  for  them  the  possibility  of  transmission  by  in- 
heritance of  their  valuable  qualities  is  cut  off,  and  hence 
the  way  is  closed  to  a  further  progress.  And,  thus,  we 
are  brought  back  to  that  simple  truth  from  which  we 
started;  there  are  two  sexes,  the  female  and  the  male, 
on  their  specific  differences  and  resemblances  blended 
together  in  union  every  true  advance  in  progress  depends 
— on  the  perfected  woman  and  the  perfected  man. 


CONTENTS    OF    CHAPTER    IX 

APPLICATION    OF    THE    FOREGOING    CHAPTER    WITH    SOME 
FURTHER    REMARKS    ON    SEX    DIFFERENCES 

I. — Women  and  Labour 

A  further  examination  of  the  sexual  differences — The  knowledge  we 
have  gained  does  not  enable  us  definitely  to  settle  the  problem — 
The  necessity  of  considering  Nurture — Woman's  character  to 
some  extent  the  result  of  circumstance,  to  some  extent  organic — 
The  difficulties  of  the  problem — Standards  of  comparison — Incom- 
pleteness of  our  knowledge — New  researches  on  sex-differences — 
The  confusion  of  opinions — Women  and  men  different,  but  neither 
superior  to  the  other — The  position  of  women  in  society  to-day — 
The  increasing  surplus  of  women — How  can  a  remedy  be  found  ? — 
Woman's  place  in  the  home — The  changes  in  modern  conditions — 
Women  and  labour — The  damning  struggle  for  life — Sweated  work 
— Women's  wages — The  marketable  value  of  woman's  sex — This 
the  explanation  of  the  smallness  of  women's  wages — The  prostitute 
better  paid  than  the  worker — Woman's  strength  as  compared 
with  man's — Are  women  really  the  weaker  sex  ? — Woman's  work 
capacity  equal  to  man's,  but  different — The  Spanish  women — 
The  intolerable  conditions  of  labour  in  commercial  countries — 
Women  more  deeply  concerned  than  men — The  real  value  of 
women's  work — This  must  be  recognised  by  the  State — The  social 
service  of  child-bearing — The  primary  and  most  important  work 
of  women — The  present  revolt  of  women — How  far  is  this  justi- 
fiable ? — A  caution  and  some  reflections. 


II. — Sexual  Differences  of  the  Mind  and  the  Artistic 
Impulse  in  Women 

The  mental  and  psychical  sexual  differences — Ineradicability  of  these — 
Can  they  be  modified  or  disregarded  ? — The  masculine  and  feminine 
intellectual  qualities — Caution  necessary  in  making  any  com- 
parison— Example,  a  tenacious  memory — Is  this  a  feminine  char- 
acteristic ? — Woman's  intuition — Its  value — Each  sex  contributes 
to  the  thought  power  of  the  other — The  artistic  impulse — Is  genius 
to  be  regarded  as  an  endowment  of  the  male  ? — An  examination 

271 


272          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

of  the  grounds  for  this  view — Untenability  of  the  opinion  of  the 
greater  variational  tendency  of  men — The  question  needs  re- 
opening— The  influence  of  environment  and  training  on  woman's 
mind — What  woman  can,  or  can  not,  do  as  yet  unproved — Woman's 
talent  for  diplomacy — The  separation  between  the  mental  life  of 
the  sexes — The  result  on  woman's  mind — The  revolt  against  re- 
pression— Woman  as  she  is  represented  in  literature — The  woman 
of  the  future — Woman  the  cause  of  emotion  in  men — Part  played 
by  women  in  early  civilisations — What  men  learnt  from  them — 
Woman's  emotional  endowment — Her  affectability  and  response 
to  suggestion — These  the  qualities  essential  to  success  in  the  arts — 
A  comparison  between  the  qualities  of  genius  and  the  qualities 
of  woman — This  opens  up  questions  of  startling  significance — 
What  women  may  achieve  in  the  future — Some  suggestions  as  to 
the  effect  of  the  entrance  of  women  into  the  arts. 

III. — The  Affectability  of  Woman — Its  Connection 
with  the  Religious  Impulse 

Woman's  aptitude  for  religion — Her  need  for  a  protection — Relation 
between  the  sexual  and  religious  emotions — Deprivation  of  love 
and  satiety  of  love  the  sources  of  religious  needs — Religious  pros- 
titution— Religio-erotic  festivals — Sexual  mysticism  in  Christi- 
anity— The  lives  of  the  saints — Religious  sexual  perceptions — 
Their  influence  on  the  emotional  feminine  character — A  personal 
experience — The  association  between  love  and  salvation — The 
same  sense  of  the  eternal  in  the  religious  and  the  sexual  impulse — 
Asceticism — Its  origin  in  the  sexual  emotions — Preoccupation  of 
the  ascetic  with  sex  needs — The  transformation  of  the  sex-impulse 
into  spiritual  activities — Examples — The  modern  ascetic — The 
fear  of  love — This  the  ultimate  cause  of  the  contempt  of  woman — 
Example  of  Maupassant's  priest — In  love  the  way  of  salvation. 


CHAPTER    IX 

APPLICATION    OF    THE    FOREGOING    CHAPTER    WITH    SOME 
FURTHER  REMARKS  ON  SEX  DIFFERENCES 

I. — Women  and  Labour 

"  The  fullest  ideal  of  the  woman-worker  is  she  who  works  not  merely 
or  mainly  for  men  as  the  help  and  instrument  of  their  purpose,  but  who 
works  with  men  as  the  instrument  yet  material  of  her  purpose." — 
GEDDES  AND  THOMSON. 

WHEN  we  come  to  consider  the  detailed  differences 
between  woman  and  man,  a  sharp  separation  of  them 
into  female  qualities  and  male  qualities  no  longer 
squares  with  the  known  facts.  Any  attempt  to  lessen  the 
natural  differences,  as  also  to  weaken  at  all  the  attrac- 
tions arising  from  this  divergence,  must  be  regarded  with 
extreme  distrust.  There  is  a  real  and  inherent  prejudice 
against  the  masculine  woman  and  the  feminine  man.  It 
is  nevertheless  necessary  very  carefully  to  discriminate 
between  innate  qualities  of  femaleness  and  maleness  and 
those  differences  that  have  been  acquired  as  the  direct 
result  of  peculiarities  of  environmental  conditions.  It 
is  certain  that  many  differences  in  the  physical  and 
mental  capacity  of  women  must  be  referred  not  to 
Nature  but  to  Nurture,  i.  e.  the  effects  of  conditions  and 
training.  Let  me  give  one  concrete  case,  for  one  clear 
illustration  is  more  eloquent  than  any  statement.  Long 
ago  Professor  Karl  Vogt  pointed  out  that  women  were 
awkward  manipulators.  Thomas,  in  Sex  and  Society, 
T  273 


274          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

answers  this  well :  "  The  awkwardness  in  manual  mani- 
pulation shown  by  these  girls  was  surely  due  to  lack  of 
practice.  The  fastest  type-writer  in  the  world  is  to-day 
a  woman ;  the  record  for  roping  steers  (a  feat  depending 
on  manual  dexterity  rather  than  physical  force)  is  held 
by  a  woman."  I  may  add  to  this  an  example  of  my  own 
observation.  In  a  recent  International  Fly  and  Bait 
Casting  Tournament,  held  at  the  Crystal  Palace,  a 
woman  was  among  the  competitors,  and  gave  an  admir- 
able exhibition  of  skill  in  salmon  fly-casting.  In  this 
competition  she  threw  one  cast  34  feet  and  two  of  33 
feet,  making  an  aggregate  of  100  yards,  which  gained 
her  the  prize  over  the  male  competitors.  It  has  also 
been  recently  stated  that  women  show  equal  skill  with 
men  in  shooting  at  a  target. 

It  is  plain  that  the  more  we  examine  the  question  of 
sex-differences  the  more  it  baffles  us.  The  only  safe- 
guard against  utter  confusion  and  idleness  of  thought 
is  to  fall  back  on  the  common-sense  view  that  woman 
is  what  she  is  largely,  because  she  has  lived  as  she  has, 
and  further,  that  in  the  present  transition  no  arbitrary 
rules  may  be  laid  down  by  men  as  to  what  she  should, 
or  should  not,  can,  or  cannot  do.  Even  in  fear  of 
possible  danger  to  be  incurred,  woman  must  no  longer 
be  "  grandf athered."  The  scope  of  this  chapter  is  to 
make  this  clear. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose,  even  if  it  were  possible 
for  me  within  the  limits  at  my  command,  to  enter  into 
an  examination  of  all  the  numerous  statements  and 
theories  with  regard  to  the  real  or  supposed  secondary 
sexual  characters  of  woman.  For  though  the  practical 


WOMEN   AND   LABOUR  275 

utility  of  such  detailed  knowledge  is  obvious,  while  there 
is  no  certainty  of  opinion  even  among  experts  to  fix  the 
distinctions  between  the  sexes,  it  is  wiser  in  one  who,  like 
myself,  can  claim  no  scientific  knowledge  to  avoid  the 
hazard  of  any  conclusion.  I  confess  that  a  most  careful 
study  of  the  many  differing  opinions  has  left  me  in  a 
state  of  mental  confusion.  One  is  tempted  to  adopt 
those  views  that  fit  in  with  one's  own  observations  and 
to  neglect  others  probably  equally  right  that  do  not  do 
this.  What  is  wanted  is  a  much  larger  number  of  careful 
experiments  and  scientific  observations.  Some  of  these 
have  been  made  already,  and  their  value  is  great,  but 
the  basis  is  still  too  narrow  for  any  safe  generalisations. 
All  kinds  of  error  are  clearly  very  likely  to  arise.  I  may, 
perhaps,  be  allowed  to  state  my  surprise,  not  to  say 
amusement,  at  the  conviction  evidenced  by  some  male 
writers  in  their  estimate  of  the  character  of  my  sex. 
I  find  myself  given  many  qualities  that  I  am  sure  I  have 
not  got,  and  deprived  of  others  that  I  am  equally  certain 
I  possess.  Thus,  I  have  found  myself  wondering,  as  I 
sought  sincerely  to  find  truth,  whether  I  am  indeed 
woman  or  man  ?  or,  to  be  more  exact,  whether  the  female 
qualities  in  me  do  not  include  many  others  regarded  as 
masculine?  This  has  forced  the  thought — is  the  differ- 
ence between  the  sexes,  after  all,  so  complete? 

I  am  aware  that  what  I  am  now  saying  appears  to  be 
in  contradiction  with  my  other  statements.  I  cannot 
help  it.  The  fact  is,  that  truth  is  always  more  diverse 
than  we  suspect.  This  is  a  question  that  reaches  so 
deeply  that  apparent  contradiction  is  sometimes  inevit- 
able. We  find  we  are  rooted  into  outside  things,  and 


T  2 


276          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

we  melt  away,  as  it  were,  into  them,  and  no  woman  or 
man  can  say,  "  I  consist  absolutely  of  this  or  that " ;  nor 
define  herself  or  himself  so  certainly  as  to  be  sure  where 
the  differences  between  the  sexes  end  and  the  points  of 
contact  begin.  Many  qualities  of  the  personality  appear 
no  more  female  than  male;  no  more  belonging  to  the 
woman  than  the  man.  And  yet,  underlying  these  com- 
mon qualities  there  is  a  deep  under-current  in  which  all 
our  nature  finds  expression  in  our  sex. 

Science  has  of  late  years  advanced  far  in  this  matter, 
yet  it  has  not  much  more  than  begun.     There  is,  as  yet, 
no  approximation  to  unanimity  of  decision,  though  the 
way  has  been  cleared  of  many  errors.     This  is  all  that 
has  really  been  done  by  the  ablest  observers,  who  seem, 
however,  unwilling,  if  one  may  say  so  without  presump- 
tion, to  accept  the  conclusions  to  which  their  own  experi- 
ments and  observations  would  seem  to  point.     Take  an 
illustration.     The  early  certitude  on  the  sex-differences  « 
in  the  weight  of  the  brain  and  in  the  proportion  of  the 
cerebral  lobes  has  been  completely  turned  upside  down. 
The   long  believed   opinion  of   the   inferiority   of   the 
woman  in  this  direction  has  been  proved  to  be  founded 
on  prejudice,  fallacies,  and  over-hasty  generalisations, 
so  that  now  it  is  allowed  that  the  sexual  differences  in  the 
brain  are  at  most  very  small.     An  even  more  instructive 
example  arises  from  the  ancient  theory  that  there  was  a 
natural  difference  in  the  respiratory  movements  of  the 
sexes.     Hutchinson  even  argued  that  this  costal  breath- 
ing was  an  adaptation  to  the  child-bearing  function  in 
woman.     Further  investigations,  however,  with  a  wider 
basis  and  more  accurate  methods — and  one  may  surely 


WOMEN   AND   LABOUR  277 

add  more  common-sense — have  changed  the  whole 
aspect  of  the  matter.  This  difference  has  been  proved 
to  be  due,  not  to  Nature  at  all,  but  wholly  to  the  effect 
of  corset-wearing  and  woman's  conventional  dress. 
There  is,  it  would  seem,  no  limit  to  the  quagmire  of 
superstition  and  error  into  which  sex-difference  have 
drawn  even  the  most  careful  inquirers  if  once  they  fail 
to  cut  themselves  adrift  from  that  superficial  view  of 
Nature's  scheme,  by  which  the  woman  is  considered  as 
being  handicapped  in  every  direction  by  her  maternal 
function. 

Enough  has  now  been  said  to  indicate  the  complica- 
tion of  the  facts,  to  say  nothing  of  their  practical  applica- 
tion. I  must  refer  my  readers  for  further  details  to 
convenient  summaries  of  the  sexual  differences,  in  Have- 
lock  Ellis's  Man  and  Woman;  Geddes  and  Thomson's 
Sex  and  Evolution;  Thomas's  Sex  and  Society;  and 
H.  Campbell's  Differences  in  the  Nervous  Organisation 
of  Men  and  Women:  the  first  of  these  is  a  treasure 
store  of  facts,  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  foundation  of 
all  later  research;  the  last  is,  perhaps,  the  most  generally 
interesting,  certainly  it  is  the  most  favourable  in  its 
estimate  of  women.  Dr.  Campbell  urges  with  much 
force  the  fallacy  of  many  popular  views.  He  does  not 
seem  to  believe  in  the  fundamental  origin  of  maleness 
and  femaleness,  holding  them  rather  to  be  secondary  and 
derived,  the  result,  in  fact,  of  selection. 

I  have  already  sufficiently  guarded  against  being  sup- 
posed to  have  any  desire  to  establish  identity  between 
woman  and  man.  I  do,  however,  object  to  any  general 
conclusion  of  an  arbitrary  and  excessive  sex-separation, 


278          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

without  the  essential  preliminary  inquiry  being  made  as 
to  the  effects  of  conditions  and  training ;  that  is,  whether 
the  opportunities  of  development  have  been  at  all  equal. 
But  here,  to  save  falling  into  a  misconception,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  point  out  that  I  do  not  say  the  same  opportunities, 
but  equal.  This  difference  is  so  important  that,  risking 
the  fear  of  being  tedious,  I  must  restate  my  belief  in 
the  unlikeness  of  the  sexes.  As  Havelock  Ellis  says, 
"  A  man  is  a  man  to  his  very  thumbs,  and  a  woman  is  a 
woman  down  to  her  little  toes."  What  I  do  mean,  then, 
is  this  :  Have  the  opportunities  of  the  woman  to  develop 
as  woman  been  equal  to  the  opportunities  of  the  man  to 
develop  as  man  ?  It  is  on  this  question,  it  seems  to  me, 
that  our  attention  should  be  fixed. 

Leaving  for  a  little  any  attempt  to  find  out  in  what 
directions  this  development  of  woman  can  be  most  fully 
carried  out,  let  us  now  clear  our  way  by  glancing  very 
briefly  at  certain  plain  facts  of  the  actual  position  of 
women  as  they  present  themselves  in  our  society  to-day. 

In  1901  there  were  1,070,00x3  more  women  than  men  in 
this  country ;  this  surplus  of  women  has  increased  slowly 
but  steadily  in  every  census  since  1841  !  Thus,  those  who 
hold  (as  all  who  look  straight  at  this  matter  must)  that 
the  essential  need  for  the  normal  woman  are  conditions 
that  make  possible  the  fulfilment  of  her  sex-functions, 
are  placed  in  an  awkward  dilemma  when  they  wish  to 
restrict  her  activities  to  marriage  and  the  home.  By  such 
narrowing  of  the  sexual  sphere  they  are  not  taking  into 
consideration  the  facts  as  they  exist  to-day.  In  a  society 
where  the  women  outnumber  the  men  by  more  than  a 
million,  it  is  sufficiently  evident  that  justice  can  be  done 


WOMEN  AND   LABOUR  279 

to  these  primary  needs  of  woman  only  by  adopting  one 
of  two  courses,  the  placing  of  women  in  a  position  which 
secures  to  them  the  possession  of  property,  or,  if  their 
dependence  on  the  labours  of  men  is  maintained,  the 
recognition  of  some  form  of  polygamy.  Here  is  no 
advocacy  of  any  sexual  licence  or  of  free-love,  but  I  do 
set  up  a  claim  for  free  motherhood,  and  however  great 
the  objections  that  may,  and,  as  I  think,  must  be  raised 
against  polygamy,  I  am  unhesitating  in  stating  my  belief 
that  any  open  and  brave  facing  of  the  facts  of  the  sex 
relationship  is  better  than  our  present  ignorance  or  hypo- 
critical indifference,  which  is  spread  like  a  shroud  over 
our  national  conditions  of  concealed  polygamy  for  men, 
side  by  side  with  enforced  celibacy  and  unconcealed  pro- 
stitution for  a  great  number  of  women.  The  most  hope- 
ful sign  of  the  woman's  movement  is  a  new  solidarity 
that  is  surely  killing  the  fatalism  of  a  past  acquiescing 
in  wrongs,  and  is  slowly  giving  birth  to  a  fine  spiritual 
apprehension  of  the  great  truth  that  what  concerns  any 
woman  concerns  all  women,  and,  I  would  add,  also  all 
men.  This  last — that  there  can  be  no  woman's  question 
that  is  not  also  a  man's  question — is  so  essentially  a  part 
of  any  fruitful  change  in  our  domestic  and  social  relation- 
ship that  women  must  not  permit  themselves  for  a 
moment  to  forget  it.  It  is  the  very  plain  things  that  so 
often  we  do  overlook. 

So  it  becomes  clear  that  the  parrot  cries  "Woman's 
Place!"  "Woman's  Sphere!"  "Her  place  is  the 
home  !  "  have  lost  much,  even  if  not  all,  their  significance. 
For,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  obvious  that  under  present 
conditions  there  are  not  enough  homes  to  go  round ;  and 


280          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

second,  even  if  we  neglect  this  essential  fact,  women  may 
well  answer  such  demands  by  saying  "  much  depends  on 
the  character  and  conditions  of  the  home  we  are  to  stay 
in."  It  was  a  many-sided  home  of  free  and  full  activity 
in  which  woman  evolved  and  wherein  for  long  ages  she 
worked;  a  home,  in  fact,  which  gave  free  opportunities 
for  the  exercise  of  those  qualities  of  constructive  energy 
that  women,  broadly  speaking,  may  be  said  to  possess. 
The  woman's  so-called  natural  position  in  the  home  is 
not  now  natural  at  all.  The  conditions  of  life  have 
changed.  Everything  is  drifting  towards  separation 
from  worn-out  conditions.  We  are  increasingly  con- 
scious of  a  growing  discontent  at  waste.  The  home  with 
its  old  full  activities  has  passed  from  women's  hands. 
But  woman's  work  is  not  less  needed.  To-day  the  State 
claims  her;  the  Nation's  housekeeping  needs  the  vitalis- 
ing mother-force  more  than  anything  else. 

The  old  way  of  looking  at  the  patriarchal  family  was, 
from  one  point  of  thought,  perfectly  right  and  reasonable 
as  long  as  every  woman  was  ensured  the  protection  of, 
and  maintenance  by,  some  man.  Nor  do  I  think  there 
was  any  unhappiness  or  degradation  involved  to  women 
in  this  co-operation  of  the  old  days,  where  the  man 
went  out  to  work  and  the  woman  stayed  to  do  work  at 
least  equally  valuable  in  the  home.  It  was,  as  a  rule, 
a  co-operation  of  love,  and,  in  any  case,  it  was  an  equal 
partnership  in  work.  But  what  was  true  once  is  not  true 
now.  We  are  living  in  a  continually  changing  develop- 
ment and  modification  of  the  old  tradition  of  the  relation- 
ship of  woman  and  man.  It  is  very  needful  to  impress 
this  factor  of  constant  change  on  our  attention,  and  to 


WOMEN   AND   LABOUR  281 

fix  it  there.  To  ignore  it,  and  it  is  too  commonly  ignored, 
is  to  falsify  every  issue.  "  The  Hithertos,"  as  Mr.  Zang- 
will  has  aptly  termed  them,  are  helpless.  Things  are  so, 
and  we  are  carried  on ;  and  as  yet  we  know  not  whither, 
and  we  are  floundering  not  a  little  as  we  seek  for  a  way. 
The  women  of  one  class  have  been  forced  into  labour  by 
the  sharp  driving  of  hunger.  Among  the  women  of  the 
other  class  have  arisen  a  great  number  who  have  turned 
to  seek  occupation  from  an  entirely  different  cause;  the 
no  less  bitter  driving  of  an  unstimulating  and  ineffective 
existence,  a  kind  of  boiling-over  of  women's  energy 
wasted,  causing  a  revolt  of  the  woman-soul  against  a  life 
of  confused  purposes,  achieving  by  accident  what  is 
achieved  at  all.  Between  the  women  who  have  the  finest 
opportunities  and  the  women  who  have  none  there  is  this 
common  kinship — the  wastage  not  so  much  of  woman  as 
of  womanhood. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  women  who  have 
been  forced  into  the  cheating,  damning  struggle  for  life. 
There  are,  according  to  the  estimate  of  labour  experts, 
5,000,000  women  industrially  employed  in  England. 
The  important  point  to  consider  is  that  during  the  last 
sixty  years  the  women  who  work  are  gaining  numerically 
at  a  greater  rate  than  men  are.  The  average  weekly  wage 
paid  is  seven  shillings.  Nine-tenths  of  the  sweated  work 
of  this  country  is  done  by  women.  I  have  no  wish  to  give 
statistics  of  the  wages  in  particular  trades;  these  are 
readily  accessible  to  all.  Unfortunately  the  facts  do  not 
allow  any  exaggeration ;  they  are  saddening  and  horrible 
enough  in  themselves.  The  life-blood  of  women,  that 
should  be  given  to  the  race,  is  being  stitched  into  our 


282          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

ready-made  clothes ;  is  washed  and  ironed  into  our  linen ; 
wrought  into  the  laces  and  embroideries,  the  feathers  and 
flowers,  the  sham  furs  with  which  we  other  women  bedeck 
ourselves ;  it  is  poured  into  our  adulterated  foods ;  it  is 
pasted  on  our  matches  and  pin-boxes;  stuffed  into  our 
furniture  and  mattresses;  and  spent  on  the  toys  we  buy 
for  our  children.  The  china  that  we  use  for  our  foods 
and  the  tins  in  which  we  cook  them  are  damned  with  the 
lead-poison  that  we  offer  to  women  as  the  reward  of 
labour. 

It  is  these  wrongs  that  the  mothers  with  the  fathers  of 
the  race  have  to  think  out  the  way  to  alter.  There  is  no 
one  among  us  who  is  guiltless  in  this  matter.  Things 
that  are  continuously  wrong  need  revolutionising,  and  not 
patching  up. 

What,  then,  is  the  real  cause  of  the  lowness  of  remune- 
ration offered  to  women  for  work  when  compared  with 
men?  Thousands  of  women  and  girls  receive  wages  that 
are  insufficient  to  support  life.  They  do  not  die,  they 
live;  but  how?  The  answer  is  plain.  Woman  possesses 
a  marketable  value  attached  to  her  personality  which  man 
has  not  got.  This  enables  her  to  live,  if  she  has  children, 
to  feed  them,  and  also  not  infrequently  to  support  the 
man,  forced  out  of  work  by  the  lowness  of  the  wages  she 
can  accept.  The  woman's  sex  is  a  saleable  thing.  Pros- 
titution is  the  door  of  escape  freely  opened  to  all  women. 
It  is  because  of  the  reserve  fund  thus  established  that 
their  honest  wages  suffer.  Not  all  sweated  women  are 
prostitutes.  Many  are  legally  married,  they  exist  some- 
how; but  the  wages  of  all  women  are  conditioned  by  this 
sexual  resource.  It  can  be  readily  seen  that  this  is  a 


WOMEN   AND   LABOUR  283 

survival  of  the  patriarchal  idea  of  the  property  value  of 
woman.  To-day  it  affords  a  striking  example  of  the  con- 
flict between  the  old  rights  of  men  with  the  rising  power 
of  women.  The  value  of  woman  is  her  sexual  value ;  her 
value  as  a  worker  is  as  yet  unrecognised,  except  as  a 
secondary  matter.  You  may  refuse  to  be  convinced  of 
this.  Yet  the  fact  remains  that  our  society  is  so  organised 
that  women  are  more  highly  paid  and  better  treated  as 
prostitutes  than  they  are  as  honest  workers. 

I  shall  say  no  more  on  this  question  here,  as  I  propose 
to  deal  with  prostitution  more  fully  in  a  later  chapter. 
I  would,  however,  point  out  that  what  I  have  said  in  no 
way  implies  an  opinion  that  women  should  be  driven  out 
of  the  labour  market.  This  is  as  unfair  as  that  they 
should  be  driven  into  it.  It  is  the  conditions  of  labour 
that  must  be  changed.  I  am  not  even  able  to  accept  the 
opinion  that  the  strength  of  woman  is  necessarily  less 
than  that  of  man,  only  that  it  is  different.  It  is,  in  fact, 
just  this  difference  that  is  so  important.  If  woman's 
capacity  in  work  was  the  same  as  men's  no  great  advan- 
tage could  arise  from  women's  entrance  into  the  work  of 
the  State.  It  might  well  lead  to  even  worse  confusion. 
It  is  the  special  qualities  that  belong  to  woman  that 
humanity  is  waiting  for.  Just  as  at  the  dawn  of  civilisa- 
tion society  was  moulded  and  in  great  measure  built  up 
by  women,  then  probably  unconscious  of  their  power  and 
the  end  it  made  towards,  so,  in  the  future,  our  society  will 
be  carried  on  and  humanised  by  women,  deliberately 
working  for  the  race,  their  creative  energy  having  become 
self-conscious  and  organised  in  a  final  and  fruitful  period 
of  civilisation. 


284          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

I  want  to  look  a  little  further  into  this  question  of  the 
strength  of  woman  as  compared  with  the  strength  of  man. 
On  the  whole  it  seems  right  to  say  that  the  man  is  the  more 
muscular  type,  and  stronger  in  relation  to  isolated  feats 
and  spasmodic  efforts.  But  against  this  may  be  placed 
the  relative  greater  tenacity  of  life  in  women.  They 
are  longer  lived,  alike  in  infancy  and  in  old  age;  they 
also  show  a  greater  power  of  resisting  death.  The  differ- 
ence in  the  incidence  of  disease,  again,  in  the  two  sexes 
is  far  from  furnishing  conclusive  evidence  as  to  the 
greater  feebleness  of  women.  Their  constitution  seems  to 
have  staying  powers  greater  than  the  man's.  The  theory 
that  women  are  "  natural  invalids  "  cannot  be  accepted. 
Every  care  must  be  taken  to  guard  against  any  mis- 
differentiation  of  function  in  the  kind  of  work  women 
are  to  do,  but  there  is  no  evidence  to  prove  that  healthy 
work  is  less  beneficial  to  women  than  to  men.  Indeed, 
all  the  evidence  points  in  the  opposite  direction.  Even 
in  the  matter  of  muscular  power  it  is  difficult  to  make 
any  absolute  statement.  The  muscular  development  of 
women  among  primitive  peoples  is  well  known.  Japanese 
women  will  coal  a  vessel  with  a  rapidity  unsurpassable  by 
men.  The  pit-brow  women  of  the  Lancashire  collieries 
are  said  to  be  of  finer  physical  development  than  any 
other  class  of  women  workers.  I  have  seen  the  women 
of  Northern  Spain  perform  feats  of  strength  that  seem 
extraordinary. 

It  is  worth  while  to  wait  to  consider  these  Spanish 
women,  who  are  well  known  to  me.  The  industrial  side 
of  primitive  culture  has  always  belonged  to  women,  and 
in  Galicia,  the  north-west  province  of  Spain,  the  old 


WOMEN   AND   LABOUR  285 

custom  is  still  in  active  practice,  owing  to  the  widespread 
emigration  of  the  men.  The  farms  are  worked  by 
women,  the  ox-carts  are  driven  by  women,  the  seed  is 
sown  and  reaped  by  women — indeed,  all  work  is  done 
by  women.  What  is  important  is  that  these  women  have 
benefited  by  this  enforced  engaging  in  activities  which 
in  most  countries  have  been  absorbed  by  men.  The 
fine  physical  qualities  of  these  workers  can  scarcely  be 
questioned.  I  have  taken  pains  to  gain  all  possible 
information  on  this  subject.  Statistics  are  not  available, 
because  in  Galicia  they  have  not  been  kept  from  this 
point  of  view.  I  find,  however,  that  it  is  the  opinion  of 
many  eminent  doctors  and  the  most  thoughtful  men  of 
the  province,  that  this  labour  does  not  damage  the  health 
or  beauty  of  the  women,  but  the  contrary,  nor  does  it 
prejudice  the  life  and  health  of  their  children.  As 
workers  they  are  most  conscientious  and  intelligent,  apt 
to  learn,  and  ready  to  adopt  improvements.  From  my 
personal  observations  I  can  bear  witness  that  their 
children  are  universally  well  cared  for.  What  impressed 
me  was  that  these  women  looked  happy.  They  are  full 
of  energy  and  vigour,  even  to  an  advanced  age.  They 
are  evidently  happy,  and  the  standard  of  beauty  among 
them  will  compare  favourably  with  the  women  of  any 
other  nation.  I  once  witnessed  an  interesting  episode 
during  a  motor-ride  in  the  country.  A  robust  and  comely 
Gallegan  woman  was  riding  a  ancas  (pillion  fashion)  with 
a  young  caballero,  probably  her  son.  The  passing  of 
our  motor-car  frightened  the  steed,  with  the  result  that 
both  riders  were  unhorsed.  Neither  was  hurt,  but  it  was 
the  woman  who  pursued  the  runaway  horse.  She  caught 


286          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

it  without  assistance  and  with  surprising  skill.  What 
happened  to  the  man  I  cannot  say.  When  I  saw  him  he 
was  standing  in  the  road  brushing  the  dust  from  his 
clothes.  I  presume  the  woman  returned  with  the  horse 
to  fetch  him. 

Women  were  the  world's  primitive  carriers.  In 
Galicia  I  have  seen  women  bearing  immense  burdens, 
unloading  boats,  acting  as  porters  and  firemen,  and 
removing  household  furniture.  I  saw  one  woman  with  a 
chest  of  drawers  easily  poised  upon  her  head,  another 
woman  bore  a  coffin,  while  another,  who  was  old,  carried 
a  small  bedstead.  A  beautiful  woman  porter  in  one 
village  carried  our  heavy  luggage,  running  with  it  on 
bare  feet,  without  sign  of  effort.  She  was  the  mother  of 
four  children,  and  her  husband  was  at  the  late  Cuban 
war.  She  was  upright  as  a  young  pine,  with  the  shape- 
liness that  comes  from  perfect  bodily  equipoise.  I  do 
not  wish  to  judge  from  trivial  incidents,  but  I  saw  in  the 
Gallegan  women  a  strength  and  a  beauty  that  has  become 
rare  among  women  to-day.  I  recall  a  conversation  with 
an  Englishman  I  met  at  La  Coruna,  of  the  not  uncom- 
mon strongly  patriotic  and  censorious  type.  We  were 
walking  together  on  the  quay;  he  pointed  to  a  group  of 
the  Gallegan  burden-bearers,  who  were  unloading  a 
vessel,  remarking  in  his  indiscriminate  British  gallantry, 
"  I  can't  bear  to  see  women  doing  work  that  ought  to  be 
done  by  men."  "  Look  at  the  women  !  "  was  the  answer 
I  made  him. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  compare  the  industrial 
conditions  of  such  a  country  as  Spain  with  England. 
We  may  associate  the  position  of  women  in  Galicia  with 


WOMEN   AND    LABOUR  287 

some  of  the  old  matriarchal  conditions.  .Women  are 
held  in  honour.  There  is  a  proverb  common  over  all 
Northern  Spain  to  the  effect  that  he  who  is  unfortunate 
and  needs  assistance  should  "  seek  his  Gallegan  mother." 
Many  primitive  customs  survive,  and  one  of  the  most 
interesting  is  that  by  which  the  eldest  daughter  in  some 
districts  takes  precedence  over  the  sons  in  inheritance. 
In  no  country  does  less  stigma  fall  upon  a  child  born 
out  of  wedlock.  As  far  back  as  the  fourth  century 
Spanish  women  insisted  on  retaining  their  own  names 
after  marriage.  We  find  the  Synod  of  Elvira  trying  to 
limit  this  freedom.  The  practice  is  still  common  for  the 
children  to  use  the  name  of  the  mother  coupled  with  that 
of  the  father,  and  in  some  cases,  alone,  showing  the 
absence  of  preference  for  the  paternal  descent.1  The 
introduction  of  modern  institutions,  and  especially  the 
empty  forms  of  chivalry,  has  lowered  the  position  of 
women.  Yet  there  can  be  no  question  that  some  feature 
of  the  ancient  mother-right  customs  have  left  the  imprint 
on  the  domestic  life  of  the  people.  Spanish  women 
have,  in  certain  directions,  preserved  a  freedom  and 
privilege  which  in  England  has  never  been  established 
and  is  only  now  being  claimed.2 

How  completely  all  difficulties  vanish  from  the  rela- 
tionship of  the  sexes  where  society  is  more  sanely 
organised — with  a  wiser  understanding  of  the  things  that 
really  matter.  The  question  is  not :  are  our  women  fit 
for  labour  ?  but  this  :  are  the  conditions  of  labour  in 

1  Velazquez  is  known  to  us  only  by  the  name  of  his  mother ;  his 
father's  name  was  de  Silva. 

*  I  have  taken  these  passages  from  the  chapter  on  "  The  Women  of 
Galicia,"  in  my  Spain  Revisited. 


288          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

England  fit  either  for  women  or  men?  The  supply  of 
cheap  labour  on  which  the  whole  fabric  of  our  society  is 
built  up  is  giving  way — and  it  has  to  go.  We  have  to 
plan  out  new  and  more  tolerable  conditions  for  the 
workers  in  every  sort  of  employment.  But  first  we  have 
to  organise  the  difficult  period  of  transition  from  the 
present  disorder. 

I  will  not  dwell  on  this.  I  would,  however,  point  out 
that  women  must  be  trained  and  ready  to  take  their  part 
with  men  in  this  work  of  industrial  re-organisation. 
They  are  even  more  deeply  concerned  than  men.  The 
conditions  of  under-payment  for  woman's  work  are  not 
restricted  to  sweated  workers;  it  is  the  same  in  skilled 
work,  and  in  all  trades  and  professions  that  are  open  to 
women.  For  exactly  the  same  work  a  lower  rate  of  pay- 
ment is  offered.  Female  labour  is  cheap,  just  as  slave 
labour  is  cheap,  the  woman  is  not  considered  as  belong- 
ing to  herself. 

There  is  no  question  here  of  the  real  value  of  woman's 
labour.  The  cry  of  man  to  woman  under  the  patriarchal 
system  has  always  been,  and  still  for  the  most  part  is, 
'  Your  value  in  our  eyes  is  your  sexuality,  for  your  work 
we  care  not."  But  mark  this  !  The  penalty  of  this  false 
adjustment  has  fallen  upon  men.  For  women,  in  their 
turn,  have  come  to  value  men  first  in  their  capacity  as 
providers  for  them,  caring  as  little  for  the  man's  sex-value 
as  men  care  for  woman's  work-value.  From  the  moment 
when  woman  had  to  place  the  economic  considerations  in 
love  first,  her  faculties  of  discrimination  were  no  more 
of  service  for  the  selection  of  the  fittest  man.  Here  we 
may  find  the  explanation  of  the  kind  of  men  girls  have 


WOMEN   AND   LABOUR  289 

been  willing  to  marry — old  men,  the  unfit  fathers,  the 
diseased.  Yes,  any  man  who  was  able  to  do  for  them 
what  they  have  not  been  allowed  to  do  for  themselves. 
And  it  is  the  race  that  suffers  and  rots;  the  sins  of  the 
mother  must  be  visited  on  the  child. 

It  is  clear,  then,  there  is  one  remedy  and  one  alone. 
This  separation  of  values  must  cease.  All  women's 
work  must  be  paid  at  a  rate  based  on  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  the  work  done;  not  upon  her  sexuality.  I 
do  not  mean  by  this  that  there  should  be  any  ignoring 
of  woman's  special  sex-function;  to  do  this,  in  my 
opinion,  would  be  fatal.  The  bearing  of  fit  children  is 
woman's  most  important  work  for  the  State.  The 
economic  stress  which  forces  women  into  unlimited  com- 
petition with  men  is,  I  am  certain,  harmful.  Women  do 
not  do  this  because  they  like  it,  but  because  they  are 
driven  to  it. 

The  true  effort  of  women,  I  conceive,  should  be  centred 
on  the  freeing  of  the  sexual  relationship  from  the 
domination  of  a  viciously  directed  compulsion,  and  from 
the  hardly  less  disastrous  work-struggle  of  sex  against 
sex.  The  emancipated  woman  must  work  to  gain 
economic  recognition,  not  necessarily  the  same  as  the 
man's,  but  her  own.  It  is  to  the  direct  interest  of  men 
to  stop  under-cutting  by  women;  but  the  way  to  do  this 
is  not  to  force  women  out  of  labour,  compelling  their 
return  to  the  home — that  is  impossible — rather  it  rests 
in  an  equal  value  of  service  being  recognised  in  both 
sexes.  The  fully  developed  woman  of  the  future  is  still 
to  be,  and  first  there  must  be  a  time  of  what  may  well 
prove  to  be  dangerous  experiments.  This  may  be 


290          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

regretted,  it  cannot  be  avoided.  The  finding  out  of  new 
paths  entails  some  losing  of  the  way. 

Women  have  to  find  out  what  work  they  can  best  do ; 
what  work  they  want  to  do,  and  what  work  men  want  them 
to  do.  I  must  insist,  against  all  the  Feminists,  on  this 
factor  of  men's  wishes  being  equally  considered  with 
woman's  own.  It  may  not  safely  be  neglected.  Woman 
without  man  at  her  side,  after  obtaining  her  freedom, 
will  advance  even  less  far  than  man  has  advanced  with 
his  freedom,  without  her  help.  To  deny  this  is  to  show 
an  absurd  misunderstanding  of  the  problem.  Neither 
the  male-force  alone,  nor  the  female-power  is  sufficient; 
no  theory  of  sex-superiority  shall  prevail.  The  setting 
up  of  women  against  men,  or  men  against  women,  to  the 
disadvantage  of  one  or  the  other,  belongs  to  a  day  that  is 
over.  We  must  recognise  that  both  the  work  of  women 
and  the  work  of  men  are  in  equal  measure  essential  to 
satisfy  the  needs  of  the  State;  the  force  of  both  sexes 
must  be  united  to  plan  and  carry  out  those  measures  of 
reform  now  called  for  by  the  new  ideals  of  a  civilised 
humanity.  It  is  only  by  loosening  all  the  chains  of  all 
women  and  all  men  alike  that  the  inherent  energies  of  the 
world's  workers  can  be  set  free  for  the  eventual  ennobling 
of  the  race. 

There  is  a  fundamental  difference  in  respect  to  the 
modes  of  energy  in  woman  and  man.  Is  it,  then,  too 
much  to  hope  for,  that  in  the  enlightened  civilisation, 
whose  dawn  is  even  now  breaking  the  darkness,  we  shall 
recognise  and  use  this  difference  in  work-power  and 
claim  from  women  the  kinds  of  labour  they  can  give  best 
to  the  State ;  and  reward  them  for  doing  this  in  such  a 


WOMEN   AND   LABOUR  291 

way  that  their  primary  social  service  of  child-bearing  is 
in  no  way  impaired  ?  But  as  yet  the  day  is  not.  There 
is  an  outlook  that  causes  foreboding.  The  female  sex 
is  in  a  dangerous  state  of  disturbance.  New  and  strange 
urgencies  are  at  work  amongst  us,  forces  for  which  the 
word  "  revolution "  is  only  too  faithfully  appropriate. 
Little  is  being  done  to  allay  these  forces,  much  conspires 
to  exasperate  them.  Whither  are  they  taking  us?  To 
this  we  women  have  to  find  an  answer. 

Other  questions  force  themselves  as  wisely  we  wait 
to  think.  What  will  women  do  when  they  have  gained 
the  voice  to  control  the  attitude  the  State  shall  assume 
in  the  regulation  of  their  work  ?  Will  their  decisions  be 
founded  on  wide  knowledge,  that  recognises  all  the  facts 
and  accepts  the  responsibilities  and  restrictions  that  any 
true  freedom  for  their  sex  entails,  or  will  it  be  merely 
continued  revolt,  tending  to  embitter  and  intensify  the 
struggle  of  sex  against  sex  ?  Will  their  action  reveal  the 
wise  patience,  the  sympathy  and  understanding  of  the 
mother,  or  will  it  prove  to  be  the  illogical,  short-sighted, 
and  bewildered  behaviour  of  the  spoilt  child?  No  one 
can  answer  these  questions.  Hitherto,  it  has  seemed 
that  women  stand  in  danger  of  losing  sight  of  great 
issues  in  grasping  at  immediate  gains.  Goaded  by  the 
wrongs  they  see  so  plainly  waiting  to  be  righted,  they 
are  in  such  a  desperate  hurry.  But  "  hurry  "  should  not 
belong  to  the  woman's  nature.  There  is  a  "  grasp " 
quality  of  this  age  that  can  bring  nothing  but  harm  to 
women.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  be  a  woman,  greater,  as  I 
believe,  than  to  be  a  man.  For  the  first  time  for  long 
ages  women  are  beginning  again  to  understand  this  and 


U  2 


292          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

all  that  it  signifies.  Women  and  not  men  are  the  respon- 
sible sex  in  the  great  things  of  life  that  really  matter. 
They  are  that  "  Stubborn  Power  of  Permanency "  of 
which  Goethe  speaks.  The  female  not  only  typifies  the 
race,  she  is  the  race.  It  is  man  who  constitutes  the 
changing,  the  experimenting,  sex.  Thus,  woman  has  to 
be  steadier  than  man,  yes,  and  more  self-sacrificing. 
She  may  not  safely  escape  from  her  work  as  "  the  giver," 
and  if  she  does  not  give  in  life,  she  must  give  in  some- 
thing. We  have  got  to  do  more  than  bear  men,  we  have 
to  carry  them  with  us  through  life — our  sons,  our  lovers, 
our  husbands.  We  must  free  them  now  as  well  as  our- 
selves, if  our  freedom  is  to  count  for  anything.  Let  us 
not,  then,  in  any  impatience,  neglect  to  pause,  to  pre- 
pare, to  be  ready,  that  the  pregnancy  of  the  present  may 
bring  fair  birth  when  the  days  are  fulfilled.  For,  after 
all,  what  shall  it  profit  women  if,  in  gaining  the  world, 
they  lose  themselves? 


II. — Sexual  Differences  in  Mind  and  the  Artistic 
Impulse  in  Women 

"  The  most  secret  elements  of  woman's  nature,  in  association  with 
the  magic  mystery  of  her  organisation,  indicate  the  existence  in  her  of 
peculiar  and  deep-lying  creative  ideas." — THEODOR  MUNDT. 

What  is  true  of  the  physical  differences  between  women 
and  men  is  true  also  of  the  mental  differences.  We  may 
readily  accept  the  saturating  influence  of  sex  on  woman's 
mind.  I  mean  a  deep-lying  distinction,  not  superficial 
and  to  be  explained  away  as  due  to  outside  things,  but 
based  on  the  essential  fact  of  her  womanhood — her 


SEXUAL   DIFFERENCES   IN   MIND         298 

capacity  for  maternity.  But  the  impracticability  of  making 
any  definite  statement  as  to  the  exact  nature  or  extent 
of  such  mental  sexual  differentiation  is  evident.  First 
must  be  cleared  up  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  between 
those  differences  that  are  fundamental  and  constitutional 
as  being  directly  dependent  on  the  woman  character  and 
those  that  have,  or  seem  to  have,  arisen  through  distinc- 
tion of  training  or  environment,  which  may  be  termed 
evolutionary  differences,  and  are  likely  to  be  changed 
by  altered  conditions.  Even  the  trained  biologist  is 
unable  to  draw  an  undisputed  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  two  kinds  of  differences,  and,  even  if  it  were 
drawn,  the  conclusion  would  not  help  us  very  much. 
For  with  regard  to  these  evolutionary  differences  that 
are  liable  to  change  many  questions  have  to  be  con- 
sidered. Can  they  safely  be  modified  or  disregarded? 
Do  we  want  them  changed?  Will  the  alteration  really 
be  of  benefit  to  women?  Only  such  qualities  as  can  be 
proved  clearly  to  be  mis-differentiations — i.  e.  directly 
harmful — can  be  contemptuously  dismissed.  Thus  the 
problem  is  an  extraordinarily  difficult  one.  I  can  only 
touch  its  outer  fringe. 

It  is  held  that  men  have  greater  mental  variability  and 
more  originality,  while  women  have  greater  stability  and 
more  common  sense.  In  this  connection  may  be  noticed 
the  characteristic  male  restlessness;  man  is  probably 
more  inclined  to  experiment  with  his  body  and  his  mind 
and  with  other  people,  while  woman's  constitution  and 
temper  is  relatively  more  conservative.  It  is  held  that 
women  have  the  greater  integrating  intelligence,  while 
men  are  stronger  in  differentiation.  The  thinking  power 


294          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

of  woman  is  deductive,  that  of  man  inductive;  woman's 
influence  on  knowledge  is  thus  held  to  be  indirect  rather 
than  direct.  But  women  have  greater  receptive  powers, 
retain  impressions  better  and  have  more  vivid  and  surer 
memories;  for  which  reason  women  are  generally  more 
receptive  for  facts  than  for  laws,  more  for  concrete  than 
for  general  ideas.  The  feminine  mind  shows  greater 
patience,  more  open-mindedness  and  tact,  and  keener 
insight  into  character,  greater  appreciation  of  subtle 
details  and,  consequently,  what  we  call  intuition.  The 
masculine  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  tends  to  a  greater 
height  of  sudden  efforts,  of  scientific  insight  and  experi- 
ment, greater  frequency  of  genius,  and  this  is  associated 
with  an  unobservant  or  impatient  disregard  of  details, 
but  a  stronger  grasp  of  general  ideas. 

Now  it  is  easy  to  make  comparisons  of  this  kind,  but 
to  accept  them  as  at  all  final  calls  for  great  caution.  Let 
me  take,  as  an  instance,  the  opinion  so  continuously 
affirmed,  that  women  are  distinguished  by  good  memories, 
in  particular,  for  details.  Now  to  regard  this  as  neces- 
sarily a  mental  sexual  character  is  entirely  to  mistake  the 
facts.  A  tenacious  memory  for  details  that  are  often  quite 
unimportant,  belongs  to  all  people  of  limited  impressions 
and  unskilled  in  thought;  it  maybe  noticed  in  all  children. 
Without  a  wide  experience  of  life  and  practice  in  con- 
structive thinking  the  mind  inevitably  falls  back  on 
fact-memory.  I  knew  an  agricultural  labourer  who  could 
only  tell  his  age  by  reckoning  the  years  he  had  been 
dung-spreading.  Thus  a  good  memory  for  details  may 
be  a  sign  of  an  untrained  mind.  It  is  an  entirely  different 
thing  from  that  acuteness  of  true  memory,  which  ensures 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN  MIND       295 

the  retention  of  all  experiences  that  have  made  an  impres- 
sion on  the  mind,  with  a  corresponding  rejection  of  what 
has  failed  to  interest.  Thus  before  anything  can  be  said 
with  regard  to  this  memory  power  of  woman,  we  have 
to  decide  on  what  it  depends — i.  e.  is  it  really  a  mental 
quality  of  woman,  or  is  it  simply  dependent  on,  and 
brought  about  by,  the  circumstances  of  her  life  and  a 
limited  experience  ?  But  to  answer  this  question  I  shall 
wait  till  later  in  this  chapter. 

It  would  be  easy  to  follow  a  similar  train  of  argu- 
ment with  regard  to  each  of  these  mental  differences  of 
the  sexes.  Few  women  have  yet  entered  even  the 
threshold  of  the  mental  world  of  men,  and  those  who 
have  done  this  stand  in  the  position  of  strangers  or 
visitors.  To  be  in  it,  in  any  true  sense,  would  be  to  be 
born  into  it  and  to  live  in  it  by  right ;  to  absorb  the  same 
experiences,  not  consciously  and  by  special  effort,  but 
unconsciously  as  a  child  absorbs  words  and  learns  to 
speak.  Whenever  this  happens,  and  not  till  then,  shall 
we  be  in  a  position  to  compare  positively  the  mental 
efficiency  of  woman  with  men.  At  present  no  more  can 
be  affirmed  than  that  the  differences  in  woman's  mental 
expression  are  no  greater  than  they  must  be  in  view  of 
the  existing  differences  in  their  experience.  And  I  am 
not  sure,  even  if  such  similarity  of  mental  life  were  pos- 
sible, that  it  would  be  of  benefit  to  women.  Indeed,  I 
am  almost  sure  that  it  would  not.  What  is  needed  is 
an  ungrudging  recognition  of  the  value  of  the  special 
feminine  qualities.  This  would  do  much  to  lessen  the 
regrettable  competition  that  undoubtedly  prevails  at 
present,  which  is  due,  it  seems  to  me,  to  the  foolish  denial 


296          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

of  the  value  of  any  save  masculine  characteristics  in  our 
art,  as  also  in  our  public  and  professional  life. 

But  leaving  this  point  for  the  present,  there  is  another 
question  arising  from  this  first  that  also  brings  me  doubt. 
Few  will  deny  that  women  are  more  instinctive  than 
logical;  more  intuitive  than  cerebral.  Men  find  their 
conclusions  by  searching  for  and  observing  facts,  while 
women,  to  a  great  extent,  arrive  at  the  same  end  by 
instinct.  They  know,  rather  than  know  how,  or  why,  they 
know.  Now,  too  often  we  hear  these  qualities  of  woman 
treated  with  contempt.  Is  this  wise?  What  I  doubt  is 
this  :  when  women  by  education  and  evolution  have  been 
able  to  learn  and  to  practise  the  inductive  process  of 
reasoning — if,  indeed,  they  do  come  to  do  this — will  they 
lose  their  present  faculty  of  gaining  conclusions  by 
instinct  ?  I  believe  that  they  must  do  so  to  a  large  extent, 
and  I  am  not  convinced  that  the  gain  would  at  all  fully 
make  up  for  the  loss.  Looking  at  human  conduct,  it  is 
regulated  quite  as  much  by  instinct  as  by  reason.  I  think 
it  will  be  impossible  to  prevent  this  being  so,  and  if  this 
is  true,  woman's  instinct  may  remain  of  greater  service 
to  her  than  the  gaining  of  a  higher  reasoning  faculty. 
The  true  distinction  between  the  psychology  of  woman 
and  man  is  as  the  difference  between  feeling  and  thought. 
Woman  thinks  through  her  emotions,  man  feels  through 
his  brain.  This  is  obviously  an  exaggeration,  but  it  will 
show  what  I  mean  by  the  different  process  of  thought 
that,  broadly  speaking,  is  usual  to  the  two  sexes.  Mis- 
takes are,  of  course,  made  by  both  processes,  but  more 
often,  as  I  believe,  by  reasoning  than  by  instinct — this 
is  probably  because  I  am  a  woman.  But  it  is  certain 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN  MIND      297 

that  each  sex  contributes  to  the  thought-power  of  the 
other,  each  is  indispensable  to  the  other,  on  the  mental 
plane  no  less  than  on  the  physical. 

The  importance  of  the  above  will  become  obvious 
when  we  consider,  as  we  will  now  do,  the  artistic  impulse 
in  woman.  Strange  difficulties  have  been  raised  on  all 
sides  concerning  the  occurrence  of  genius  among  women. 
It  seems  to  be  accepted  that  in  respect  of  artistic  endow- 
ment the  male  sex  is  unquestionably  superior  to  the 
female.  Havelock  Ellis,  for  instance,  in  dealing  with 
this  question  says,  "  The  assertion  of  Mobius  l  that  the  art 
impulse  is  of  the  nature  of  a  male  secondary  sexual  char- 
acter, in  the  same  sense  as  the  beard,  cannot  be  accepted 
without  some  qualification,  but  it  may  well  represent  an 
approximation  of  the  truth."  By  some  it  is  held  that  genius 
is  linked  with  maleness  :  that  it  represents  an  ideal  mas- 
culinity in  the  highest  form ;  and  from  genius  the  feminine 
mind  must,  therefore,  be  excluded.  But  in  truth  it  is  not 
easy  to  credit  such  assumptions,  or  to  see  the  strangeness 
of  the  difficulties  in  an  exact  opposite  view,  if  we  under- 
stand the  significance  of  those  qualities  of  femaleness 
which  are  allowed  to  women  by  those  who  most  deny  to 
her  the  possibility  of  genius.  Such  a  denial  serves  only 
to  show  the  absurd  presumption  of  present  knowledge 
of  this  kind  in  its  hope  to  solve  a  problem  so  difficult. 

Let  me  try  to  sift  out  the  facts.  And  first  we  must 
inquire  on  what  grounds  this  opinion  is  based.  I  have 
already  alluded  to  the  general  belief  in  the  greater  degree 
of  variability  in  men,  which,  if  established,  would  on  the 
psychical  side  involve  an  accentuated  individualism  and 

1  Man  and  Woman,  p.  377;  Mobius,  Stachylogie,  1901. 


298          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

hence  a  greater  possibility  of  genius.  This  view  has  been 
supported  by  John  Hunter,  Burdach,  Darwin,  Havelock 
Ellis,  and  others.  Ellis,  in  the  chapter  on  "  The  Artistic 
Impulse "  in  Man  and  Woman,  says,  "  The  rarity  of 
women  artists  of  the  first  rank  is  largely  due  to  the 
greater  variational  tendency  of  men."  Now,  this  bio- 
logical fact  is  certainly  of  great  importance,  if  it  can  be 
proved.  But  can  it  ?  It  has  recently  been  contested  by 
anthropologists  at  least  as  distinguished  as  those  who 
have  given  it  their  support.  Manouvrier,  Karl  Pearson, 
Frossetto,  and  especially  Guiffrida-Ruggieri  have  brought 
forward  evidence  to  prove  the  fallacy  of  this  belief  in 
the  slighter  variability  and  infantile  character  of  woman. 
Now,  it  is  clearly  impossible  for  me  in  the  space  at  my 
command  to  go  into  the  conclusions  brought  forward  on 
both  sides  of  this  difficult  question.  What  I  want  to 
make  clear  is  that  this  greater  variability  of  man  has  not 
been  established,  and  therefore  cannot  be  accepted  as  a 
condition  of  male  genius.  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  give 
a  statement  on  this  question  by  Professor  Arthur  Thom- 
son, which  will  sufficiently  show  that  my  opinion  is  not 
put  forward  wantonly  and  without  due  consideration,  but 
that  it  coincides  with  the  conclusion  of  one  who  is  an 
acknowledged  leader  in  the  advanced  biological  study 
of  the  sexes. 

Professor  Thomson  writes  thus  * — 

"We  would  guard  against  the  temptation  to  sum  up  the  con- 
trast of  the  sexes  in  epigrams.  We  regard  the  woman  as  relatively 

1  The  passage  occurs  in  a  lecture  by  Prof.  Thomson  and  Mrs. 
Thomson  on  "  The  Position  of  Woman  Biologically  Considered,"  and 
was  one  of  a  series  delivered  in  Edinburgh  to  consider  and  estimate  the 
recent  changes  in  the  position  of  woman.  The  addresses  have  been 
published  in  a  book  entitled  The  Position  of  Woman,  Actual  and  Ideal. 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN  MIND       299 

more  anabolic,  man  as  relatively  more  katabolic,  and  whether  this 
biological  hypothesis  is  a  good  one  or  not,  it  certainly  does  no 
social  harm.  But  when  investigators  begin  to  say  that  woman 
is  more  infantile  and  man  more  senile,  that  woman  is  "undeve- 
loped man"  and  man  is  "evolved  woman,"  we  get  among 
generalisations  not  only  unscientific  but  practically  dangerous. 
Not  the  least  dangerous  of  these  generalisations  is  one  of  the  most 
familiar,  that  man  is  more  variable  than  woman,  that  the  raw 
materials  of  evolution  make  their  appearance  in  greatest  abund- 
ance in  man.  There  seems  to  be  no  secure  basis  for  this  general- 
isation ;  it  seems  doubtful  whether  any  generalisation  of  the  kind 
is  feasible.  Prof.  Karl  Pearson  has  made  seventeen  groups  of 
measurements  of  different  parts  of  the  body,  in  eleven  groups  the 
female  is  more  variable  than  the  male,  and  in  six  the  male  is  more 
variable  than  the  female.  Moreover  the  differences  of  variability 
are  slight,  less  than  those  between  members  of  the  same  race 
living  in  different  conditions.  Furthermore,  an  elementary  remark 
may  be  pardoned.  Since  inheritance  is  bi-parental,  and  since 
variation  means  some  peculiarity  in  the  inheritance,  a  greater 
variability  in  men,  if  true,  would  not  mean  that  men  had  any  credit 
for  varying.  The  stimulus  to  variation  may  have  come  from  the 
mother  as  well  as  the  father.  //  proved  it  would  only  mean  that 
the  male  constitution  gives  free  play  to  the  expression  of  varia- 
tions, which  are  kept  latent  in  the  female  constitution.  But  what 
is  probably  true  is  that  some  variations  find  expression  more 
readily  in  man  and  others  more  readily  in  woman." 

The  italics  in  the  passage  are  mine,  for  they  make 
abundantly  clear  the  falseness  of  the  old  view,  and  show 
how  much  the  question  needs  reopening  from  the 
common-sense  standpoint  of  opportunity.  I  shall,  there- 
fore, only  restate  my  opinion  that  it  is  impossible  to 
assume  a  fundamental  difference  in  individuality  as 
existing  between  woman  and  man  until  it  can  be  proved 
that  the  same  free-play  to  the  expression  has  been 
common  alike  to  both  sexes. 

To  me  it  seems  probable  that  what  Samuel  Butler 
insists  upon  is  true,  and  that  the  origin  of  variations  must 


800          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

be  looked  for  in  the  needs  and  experiences  of  the  creature 
varying.  But  let  this  pass,  as  it  opens  up  too  large  and 
difficult  a  question  to  enter  upon  here.  The  effects  of 
environment  and  function  must  act  as  a  kind  of  arbiter 
directing  conduct  and,  in  particular,  mental  expression. 
It  is  the  very  A  B  C  of  the  question  that  appropriate 
training  and  opportunities  of  use  are  essential  if  any  mind 
is  to  develop.  Supply  such  mental  stimuli  to  the  boy 
and  man,  deny  them  to  the  girl  and  woman,  and  then 
call  "  the  art  impulse  of  the  nature  of  a  male  secondary 
sexual  character,"  because  woman  has  as  yet  played  but 
a  small  and  secondary  part  in  any  of  the  arts !  The 
source  of  error  is  so  plain  that  one  can  only  wonder  at 
the  fallacies  that  have  been  accepted  as  truth.  Thus, 
when  one  finds  so  just  and  careful  an  investigator  as 
Havelock  Ellis  saying,  "  It  is  unthinkable  that  a  woman 
should  have  discovered  the  Copernician  system !  "  it  can 
but  be  regarded  as  an  example  of  that  sex-bias  which 
marks  so  strikingly  men's  statements  on  this  subject  of 
mental  sex-differences.  We  may  well  ask,  Why  un- 
thinkable? As  answer  I  will  give  the  finely  just  acknow- 
ledgment of  Iwan  Bloch  on  this  very  question.  He  refers 
to  this  statement  of  Havelock  Ellis,  and  then  says,  "  I 
need  merely  call  to  mind  the  widely  known  physical 
discoveries  of  Madame  Curie,  whose  thoroughly  inde- 
pendent work  qualified  her  to  succeed  her  husband  as 
professor  at  the  Sorbonne.  We  cannot,  therefore, 
exclude  the  possibility  that  in  the  sphere  of  the  natural 
sciences  notable  discoveries  and  inventions  may  be  made 
in  the  future  in  consequence  of  the  independent  work  of 
women."  *  To  take  another  instance.  We  find  the  fact 

1  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Times,  p.  74. 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN   MIND       301 

that  so  far  women  have  gained  very  small  distinction  in 
music,  contrasted  with  the  great  number  of  girls  who  are 
trained  to  play  on  musical  instruments.  But  this  is 
surely  to  show  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  the 
question.  It  is  like  saying  that  the  best  preparation  for 
a  painter  to  know  the  colours  reflected  on  water  by  a 
cloudy  or  sunny  sky  would  be  a  course  of  optics.  Music 
is  at  once  the  most  imaginative  and  the  most  severely 
abstract  of  the  arts,  and  the  absence  of  women  from  music 
must  be  referred  to  deeper  causes,  which  yet,  it  seems  to 
me,  are  not  far  to  seek. 

Mind,  I  make  no  claim  for  women.  I  acknowledge 
fully  that  in  all  the  arts,  except  in  acting  and  in  dancing, 
woman's  achievement  has  been  infinitely  less  than  man's. 
There  have  been  a  few  great  women  poets — notably  a 
Sappho,  many  good  writers  of  fiction,  and  some  capable 
painters.  But  to  bring  forward  these  particular  women 
and  to  try  either  to  exaggerate  or  belittle  their  importance 
can  serve  nothing.  This  search  for  ability  among  women 
is  absurd.  It  already  exists  widely,  though  unused  or 
directed  into  channels  of  waste.  Of  this  I  am  convinced. 
The  thing  that  has  been  rare  is  opportunity.  The  fact 
that  some  few  women  have  struggled  up  out  of  obscurity 
does  not  so  much  show  that  they  possessed  a  special 
masculine  superiority  as  that  they  have  been  less  inex- 
tricably bound  down  than  others  by  the  conventional 
bonds  of  a  man-ruled  society.  I  believe  that  this  could 
be  proved  in  the  case  of  every  woman  who  has  attained 
to  fame.  And  there  is  another  point.  The  women  who 
have  succeeded  in  bursting  these  bonds  have,  in  most 
cases,  done  so  at  such  great  cost  of  energy  and  fighting, 
that  their  work  is  rendered  crude  and  often  valueless. 


802          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

Self-assertion  can  never  be  the  best  preparation  for 
achievement.  All  this  narrows  the  mental  horizon  and 
tends  to  make  the  results  gained  superficial  and  unendur- 
ing.  We  have  here  the  explanation  of  much  that  has 
been,  and  still  is,  futile  in  women's  efforts. 

The  face  of  the  world,  however,  is  changing  for  women. 
It  may  be  that  the  future  will  reveal  creative  ability  in 
them  as  yet  unsuspected.  It  is  not  safe  to  prophesy,  and 
no  one  can  say,  as  yet,  just  in  what  direction  women  will 
develop.  It  may  prove  that  their  special  qualities  will 
not  find  expression  in  the  realm  of  imagination,  but 
will  be  turned  to  diplomacy  and  to  administration  and 
financial  work.  I  simply  affirm  that  what  women  can  or 
cannot  do  is  as  yet  unproved.  Throughout  the  ages  of 
patriarchal  faith  one  ideal  of  womanhood  has  been  im- 
pressed upon  the  world,  which  is  only  now  being  shaken 
— the  ideal  of  self-repression  and  submission  to  the  will 
of  man,  of  society,  and  of  God.  Women's  minds  have 
reflected  only  the  minds  of  men.  I  think  that  much  of 
the  failure  of  women's  work  arises  from  the  arrogance 
of  men,  who  have  always  preferred  the  flattering  image 
of  woman  in  their  own  minds  to  woman  herself.  Woman 
has  had  to  accept  this.  She  could  only  realise  her- 
self through  man,  not  with  man,  while  he  has  been 
able  to  realise  himself,  either  with  her  help  or  without 
her. 

There  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  mental  and 
social  attitudes  of  men  and  women.  Men  have  been 
responsible  to  society  at  large  for  their  work  and  conduct, 
woman's  outlook  has  been  much  narrower;  she  has  been 
responsible  to  men,  and  has  only  touched  outside  life 


SEXUAL   DIFFERENCES   IN   MIND       303 

through  them.  In  this  way  women  have  developed  on 
wrong  lines.  It  is  significant,  for  instance,  how  many 
women  have  written  books  under  men's  names.  Women's 
work  and  conduct  has  been  largely  restricted  by  this 
adjustment  to  men,  with  the  result  that  not  only  their 
mental  capacity  and  work-power  has  suffered,  but  their 
attention  has  been  fixed,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  enhan- 
cing of  the  attractiveness  of  their  persons  as  an  aid  to  hold 
men  to  their  service.  The  feminine  mind  and  interests 
have  been  set  so  strongly  towards  personal  display  that 
they  will  not  easily  be  diverted.  The  clothes-peg  woman 
is  familiar  to  all :  she  gratifies  any  whim,  well  knowing 
that  it  is  her  male  protector  who  will  have  to  pay,  not  she. 
She  will,  on  occasions,  use  her  children  for  such  base 
ends.  She  knows  the  game  is  in  her  hand.  Even  if  the 
man  resists  her  for  a  time,  she  understands  how  easily 
she  can  break  down  his  objections  by  a  seductive  display 
of  silk  stockings !  The  character  of  woman  as  the 
inherent  coquette  is  very  deeply  rooted.  It  is  only  a 
little  more  baneful  to  the  freedom  of  the  sexes  than  that 
opposite  pernicious  side  of  woman  as  a  sort  of  angel- 
child,  which  we  all  know  to  be  such  a  preposterous 
pretence. 

Nor  do  I  think  that  the  change  from  these  conditions 
can,  or  will,  be  easy.  Women  may,  and  do,  protest 
against  the  triviality  of  their  lives,  but  emotional  interests 
are  more  immediate  than  intellectual  ones.  Human 
nature  does  not  drift  into  intellectual  pursuits  voluntarily, 
rather  it  is  forced  into  them  in  connection  with  urgency 
and  practical  activities.  It  is  much  easier  to  be  kept, 
dressed,  and  petted,  than  to  work.  Women  have  not 


304          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

participated  in  the  mental  activities  of  men  because  it  has 
not  been  necessary  for  them ;  to  do  this  has  been,  indeed, 
a  hindrance  to  their  success.  The  contrast  between  the 
sexes  in  this  respect  has  been  well  compared  by  Thomas  l 
to  the  relation  of  the  amateur  and  the  professional  in 
games.  "Women  may  be  desperately  interested  and 
work  to  the  limit  of  endurance  at  times;  but,  like  the 
amateur,  they  enter  into  the  work  late,  and  have  not 
had  a  lifetime  of  practice.  .  .  .  No  one  will  contend 
that  the  amateur  has  a  nervous  organisation  less 
fitted  to  the  game  than  the  professional;  it  is  admitted 
that  the  difference  lies  in  the  constant  practice."  It 
is  only  in  the  case  of  woman  that  the  obvious  con- 
clusion is  passed  over  for  assumptions  that  cannot  be 
proved. 

The  revolt  against  repression  has  taken  amongst  many 
women  another  form  of  abandonment  to  lives  of  sexual 
preoccupation  and  intrigue.  Scan  the  history  of  woman 
as  she  is  presented  in  our  literature  and  drama,  and  you 
will  find  one  expression  of  her  character,  one  idea  alone 
of  her  sphere.  It  is  a  point  of  such  interest  that  I  would 
like  to  linger  upon  it.  Wherever  woman  enters  she  is  a 
disturbing  influence ;  she  is  the  centre  of  emotional  action, 
it  is  true,  but  with  no  recognised  position  in  life  outside 
of  her  sex;  around  her  rage  seas  of  stormy  passions, 
which  sometimes  she  calms,  sometimes  lashes  into  angrier 
foam.  In  a  sense  it  may  be  said  that  she  has  scarcely 
an  individual  existence;  it  is  solely  in  her  relation  to 
man  that  her  nature  is  considered.  If  she  works,  or  prac- 
tises one  of  the  arts,  she  does  this  only  until  marriage. 

1  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  306,  307. 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN   MIND       305 

It  does  not  seem  to  be  conceived  as  possible  that  she  can 
follow  work,  as  the  artist  must,  for  herself.  It  is  curious 
how  far  we  have  been  misled  by  that  giving-power  of 
woman,  which,  in  part,  is  right  and  natural  to  her,  but 
also,  in  much  greater  part,  has  been  harmfully  forced 
upon  her.  The  creator's  need  to  find  expression  is,  I 
am  certain,  at  least  as  strongly  rooted  in  woman  as  in 
man,  but  no  plant  can  attain  to  growth  unless  fitting 
nourishment  is  given  to  it.  To  ignore  this  leads  very 
directly  to  deception.  Thus  we  find  Mr.  Wells,  usually 
so  true  in  his  insight,  keeps  up  an  old  pretence  and  affirms 
in  his  latest  novel,  Marriage — 

"  They   don't  care  for  art  or  philosophy,  or  literature  or  any- 
thing  except   the    things    that    touch    them   directly.      And    the 

work ?     It's  nothing  to  them.     No  woman   ever  painted  for 

the  love  of  painting,  sang  for  the  sounds  she  made,   or  philo- 
sophised for  the  sake  of  wisdom  as  men  do." 

So  it  is  always.  Without  question  it  has  been  taken 
for  granted  by  those  who  have  depicted  woman  that  her 
sole  occupation  is  an  emotional  one;  here  alone  is  she 
justified  in  literature,  as  in  life. 

The  fully  complete  woman  of  the  future  is  still  to  be 
created;  assuredly  she  is  not  to  be  found  among  the 
women  who  have  been  portrayed  so  widely  for  us  by 
recent  writers.  These  are  portraits  arising  out  of  the 
present  confusion;  as  such  they  are  interesting,  but  they 
are  quite  unreal  in  their  relation  to  life.  They  show  us 
women,  and  men  too,  in  revolt.  Often  these  women  are 
really  nothing  more  than  feminist  stump-orators  preach- 
ing the  doctrine  of  an  unconsidered  individualism  • 
"  Free  Motherhood,"  "  Free  Love  " — free  anything,  in 


306          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

fact.  These  portraits  are  far  removed,  indeed,  from  the 
perfected  woman  that  is  to  be.  We  want  something 
much  more  than  this — woman  with  all  sides  of  her  nature 
adequately  worked  upon  and  fully  developed. 

Now,  to  look  for  a  moment  at  the  other  side  of  the 
question.  Woman  has  been  the  cause  of  emotion  in 
men,  the  fine  instrument  by  which  the  poet  has  sung  and 
the  musician  played  his  exquisite  music;  the  sculptor, 
the  painter,  the  writer,  all  have  drawn  their  inspiration 
from  her.  Have  men,  then,  any  right  to  pride  themselves 
to  such  a  degree  on  their  achievement  in  the  arts  ?  Could 
they  without  woman  have  advanced  anything  like  so  far  ? 
And  this  becomes  abundantly  evident  if  we  look  a  little 
deeper  and  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  arts.  "  Not," 
writes  Karl  Biicher,1  "  upon  the  steep  summits  of  society 
did  poetry  originate,  it  sprang  rather  from  the  depths  of 
the  pure,  strong  soul  of  the  people.  Women  have  striven 
to  produce  it,  and  as  civilised  man  owes  to  woman's  work 
much  the  best  of  his  possessions,  so  also  are  her  thoughts 
interwoven  in  the  spiritual  treasure  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation." 

A  glance  back  at  the  beginnings  of  human  civilisation 
show  that  women  were  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  men  in 
productive  poetic  activity.  To  a  large  extent  men  first 
learned  from  women  the  elements  of  the  various  handi- 
crafts. I  have  already  referred  to  this  fact  in  the  his- 
torical section,  where  we  see  the  reasons  whereby  women 
lost  their  early  control  over  the  industrial  arts.  I  wish 
to  refer  to  a  point  of  special  importance  now,  which  I 
find  is  brought  forward,  in  this  connection,  by  Iwan 

1  Quoted  by  Bloch,  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Times,  p.  80. 


SEXUAL   DIFFERENCES   IN   MIND       307 

Bloch.1  In  the  start  of  the  industrial  occupations,  in 
sowing  and  thrashing  and  grinding  the  grain,  in  baking 
bread,  in  the  preparation  of  food  and  drinks,  of  wine  and 
beer,  in  the  making  of  pots  and  baskets,  and  in  spinning, 
the  women  worked  together;  and,  as  is  common  still 
among  primitive  peoples,  these  occupations  were  largely 
carried  on  in  a  rhythmical  manner.  From  this  co-opera- 
tion of  the  women  it  resulted  that  they  were  the  first 
creators  of  poetry  and  music.  The  men,  on  the  other 
hand,  hunted  singly  in  the  forests.  The  birth  of  their 
poetic  activity  followed  only  after  they  had  monopolised 
the  labours  of  material  production.  Even  to-day  among 
many  races  the  influence  of  woman's  poetry  can  be  fol- 
lowed for  a  long  way  into  the  literary  period.  I  have 
myself  witnessed  something  similar  to  this  among  the 
peasants  in  the  rural  districts  of  Spain.  I  have  heard 
women  in  the  evenings  relate  to  one  another  and  to  their 
children  the  rich  legends  of  their  land,  carrying  on  the 
old  traditions  that  have  come  down  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  thus  creating  among  themselves  a  com- 
munion of  heroes.  Then,  again,  these  Spanish  women 
seem  never  to  cease  from  singing  as  they  carry  on  their 
many  and  heavy  labours.  The  women  sing  far  more 
frequently  than  the  men.  Music  is  to  them  an  instinctive 
means  of  expression;  they  do  not  learn  it,  it  belongs  to 
them,  like  dancing  belongs  to  the  natural  child.  And 
these  folk  songs,  where  the  words  are  often  improvised 
by  the  singer,  seem  to  give  utterance  to  natural  out-door 
things — a  symbol  of  the  people's  life,  of  its  action,  its 
work,  very  strong  in  its  appeal,  which  blends  so  strangely 

1  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Times,  pp.  80,  81. 

X  3 


308          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

joy  with  sadness.  A  special  quality  that  often  surprised 
me  in  these  songs  was  the  way  in  which  the  people  trans- 
late and  use  the  music  of  other  countries.  I  have  heard 
popular  English  tunes  sung  by  the  women  as  they  work, 
which  have  ceased  to  be  common  in  their  sentiment  and 
become  full  of  a  tenderness  into  which  passion  has 
fallen;  even  slangy  music-hall  tunes  take  a  new  char- 
acter, a  lively  brilliance  that  no  longer  is  vulgar.  This 
music  is  the  true  singing  of  the  people,  and  if  you  would 
feel  all  the  beauty  of  its  appeal  you  must  be  in  touch 
with  the  spirit  that  cries  in  it,  with  work,  and  passion,  and 
life. 

It  may  seem  that  all  this  has  taken  us  rather  far  away 
from  our  inquiry  into  the  strength  of  the  artistic  impulse 
in  women.  The  way,  however,  is  largely  cleared.  We 
have  proved  that  there  is,  at  least,  a  possible  mistake  in 
the  opinion  that  those  experiments  in  creative  expression, 
which  we  call  variations,  are  necessarily  inherent  in  the 
male,  rather  than  in  the  female.  Speaking  biologically, 
we  may  regard  woman,  in  common  with  man,  as  a 
potentially  creative  agent  with  a  striving  will,  and  thus 
able  to  change  under  the  stimulus  of  appropriate 
opportunity. 

Now,  to  look  at  the  question  for  a  moment  in  a  different 
light — in  relation  to  the  special  qualities  that  are  facts 
of  actual  experience  in  woman's  character  as  it  is  to-day. 
It  is  proved — if  scientific  determination  of  such  qualities 
were  necessary — that  women  are  more  sensitive  to  sug- 
gestion and  receptive  of  outward  influences;  that  they 
have  keener  affectability,  and  thus  tend  to  be  more  emo- 
tional and,  within  certain  limits,  more  imaginative  than 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN   MIND       309 

men.  They  react  to  both  physical  and  psychical  stimuli 
more  readily,  and  it  would  seem  that  their  brain  action 
is  more  rapid.  Experimental  tests  have  shown  that  in 
respect  of  quickness  of  comprehension  and  intellectual 
mobility  women  are  distinctly  superior  to  men. 

It  is,  of  course,  an  open  question  how  far  all  this  is  due 
to  Nature  and  how  far  merely  to  education.  Must  we 
regard  this  emotional  endowment  of  woman  as  permanent 
or  alterable?  Havelock  Ellis  has  detected  a  decline  in 
the  emotivity  of  modern  women  under  the  influence  of 
new  conditions,  especially  as  the  result  of  the  more 
healthy  life  and  out-door  games  among  girls.  But  he 
does  not  believe  that  any  present  or  future  change  in 
activities  can  lead  to  a  complete  abolition  of  the  emo- 
tional differences  between  the  sexes.  These  qualities  are 
correlated  with  the  essential  physical  function  of  women, 
and  are  probably  in  part  of  similar  deep  origin,  and  are 
therefore  not  likely  to  change.  Nietzsche,  as  is  well 
known,  denies  this  emotional  capacity  of  women,  and 
considers  them  much  more  remarkable  for  their  intelli- 
gence than  for  their  sensitiveness  and  feeling.  I  believe, 
however,  the  view  of  Havelock  Ellis  to  be  the  right  one. 
Throughout  Nature  it  would  seem  to  be  indispensable 
that  the  mother  should  have  finer  and  quicker  sensibility 
than  the  father.  The  female  selects  the  male  that  she 
may  use  him  for  the  race.  Women,  for  the  reasons  we 
have  seen,  have,  as  I  believe,  lost  much  of  the  fineness 
of  their  selective  sensitiveness.  But  whether  this  greater 
emotional  power  in  women  has  been  weakened  or  not, 
it  is — as  all  nature  proves  to  us — an  actual  quality  of  the 
female,  and  in  it  we  have,  therefore,  a  positive  ground 


310          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

to  start  from  in  estimating  the  potential  artistic  endow- 
ment of  women. 

Let  us  accept,  then,  this  sensitiveness  both  physical 
and  psychical,  as  at  least  the  natural  character  of  female- 
ness.  How  does  it  place  women  in  her  relation  to  the 
arts? 

Consider  what  are  the  qualities  essential  to  success  in 
any  one  of  the  arts.  Are  not  the  most  essential  of  these 
a  quick  reception  of  impressions,  added  to  an  acute 
memory  for  all  that  has  been  experienced?  The  poet 
and  the  writer  can  reach  deeper  into  the  nature  of  others, 
the  architect,  the  sculptor,  the  painter  can  see  more 
clearly,  the  musician  hear  more  finely;  and  so  it  is  with 
all  the  arts.  Does  not  the  genius,  or  even  the  man  of 
talent,  take  his  place  as  one  who  understands  incompar- 
ably more  than  others ;  or,  to  express  it  a  little  differently, 
the  genius  is  he  who  is  conscious  of  most  and  of  that 
most  acutely.  And  what  is  it  that  enables  him  to  do 
this,  if  it  is  not  a  greater  sensitiveness  and  a  finer 
response  to  every  outward  suggestion  ?  It  would  seem, 
then,  that  genius  must  possess  the  emotional  qualities 
that  are  the  natural  endowment  of  woman ;  while  woman 
herself  is  to  be  excluded  from  genius.  A  conclusion 
that  is  plainly  absurd. 

The  further  we  follow  this  the  more  striking  the  like- 
ness between  the  qualities  of  genius  and  the  high,  nervous 
affectability  of  woman  becomes.  The  intuition  of  woman 
is  really  direct  vision  and  may  mean  only  a  quicker  power 
of  reasoning.  Exactly  the  same  quality  must  be  acknow- 
ledged as  distinguishing  the  genius.  He,  too,  knows, 
rather  than  reasons  how  he  knows. 


SEXUAL    DIFFERENCES   IN  MIND        311 

Take,  again,  the  alleged  superiority  of  the  feminine 
mind  in  matter  of  memory.  There  is  the  same  difference 
between  the  memory  of  the  ordinary  man  and  the  man  of 
genius.  Mental  recognition  is  proportional  to  the  intensity 
of  consciousness.  Because  the  life  of  the  genius  is  more 
continuously  emotional — nearer,  in  fact,  in  its  nature 
to  the  woman's — he  is  more  ready  to  receive  impressions 
and  to  keep  them.  And  here  we  may  note  the  incitement 
towards  autobiography  common  to  gifted  men,  which 
would  seem  to  arise  from  the  same  psychological  condition 
which  forces  women  so  strongly  to  self-revelations.  So 
also  with  all  the  mental  qualities  we  shall  find,  I  believe, 
the  same  connection  between  the  special  characters  of 
woman  and  those  of  genius.  Woman's  mental  mobility, 
her  tendency  towards  nervous  outbursts,  with  a  corre- 
sponding irritability  and  greater  susceptibility  to  fatigue, 
except  under  the  support  of  excitement,  as  also  in  the 
resulting  qualities  of  her  power  of  ready  adaptation  to 
changes  of  habits  and  response  to  new  influences,  her  tact, 
her  keener  insight  into  character,  her  quickness  in  pity, 
her  impulsiveness,  her  finer  discrimination,  her  innate 
sense  of  symmetry  or  fitness — each  of  these  qualities  may 
be  said  to  accord  also  with  the  character  of  genius,  but 
no  one  among  them  is  common  to  the  ordinary  man. 

Even  in  so  obvious  a  point  as  facial  expression  the 
same  relation  may  be  traced.  It  is  a  matter  of  constant 
observation  that  women's  faces  are  more  expressive  than 
men's,  showing  greater  mobility,  through  the  instinctive 
response  to  suggestions  from  without  and  within.  A 
similar  mobility  will  be  readily  noted  in  the  appearance 
of  almost  all  men  of  special  giftedness.  The  faces  of 


312          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

such  men  rarely  exhibit  the  stereotyped  expressions  that 
characterise  most  male  countenances.  No  one  mood 
leaves  a  permanent  imprint  on  the  features,  for  through 
the  amplitude  of  feeling  a  new  side  of  the  mind  is  con- 
tinuously revealed.  Faces  with  an  unchanging  expres- 
sion belong  really  to  people  low  in  artistic  endowment. 
Of  some  significance,  again,  is  the  variability  in  the 
mental  power  of  genius,  leading  to  what  may  be  called 
"  a  periodicity  in  production."  Goethe  has  spoken  some- 
where of  "  the  recurrence  of  puberty  "  in  the  artist.  This 
idea  may  perhaps,  without  too  much  straining,  be  com- 
pared with  the  functional  periodicity  of  woman.  The 
periods  in  the  life  of  a  creative  artist  often  assume  the 
character  of  a  crisis — a  kind  of  climax  of  vital  energy. 
Sterile  years  precede  productive  periods,  to  be  followed 
by  more  barren  years.  The  circle  of  activity  is  not  broken, 
it  is  but  interrupted ;  the  years  of  apparent  sterility  really 
leading  up  to,  and  preparing  for,  the  creative  periods. 
I  may  point  out  here  a  thought  in  passing  in  connection 
with  the  child-bearing  functions  of  women.  This  is 
brought  forward  by  many  as  the  most  serious  objection 
to  women  being  able  to  attain  success  in  any  of  the  arts 
The  objection  is  not  really  sound.  No  creative  work 
can  be  carried  on  without  interruptions.  The  important 
part  in  all  such  work  is  not  to  be  uninterrupted,  but  to  be 
able  to  begin  again.  The  new  experiences  gained  give 
new  power;  a  fresh  and  wider  view.  And  woman  has 
in  her  supreme  function  of  motherhood — an  experience 
denied  to  men;  this  should  give  her  greater,  and  not 
less,  creative  capacity.  What  is  really  needed  is  the 
freedom,  the  training  and  the  desire  that  shall  direct 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN  MIND      313 

expression,  so  that  woman  may  enrich  the  arts  with  her 
own  special  experience. 

It  is  useless  to  argue  that  woman's  past  record  in  the 
arts  holds  out  no  such  promise.  We  know  really  very 
little  about  woman's  genius.  One  thing  is,  however, 
certain  :  the  only  possible  test  of  it  is  trial,  for  without 
this  there  is  no  basis  of  judgment,  no  means  of  deciding 
whether  there  be  genius  or  no.  If,  as  I  believe,  woman's 
creative  capacity  arises  out  of,  and  is  essentially  con- 
nected with,  her  sexual  functions,  how  can  it  have  been 
possible  to  employ  such  power  in  the  arts  in  a  society 
where  the  natural  use  of  her  sex  has  been  restricted  and 
not  allowed  a  free  expression? — a  society,  moreover,  in 
which  the  pregnant  woman  has  been  regarded  as  an 
object  of  shame  or  ridicule. 

To  look  at  this  question  of  woman's  achievement  in  the 
arts  in  the  old  way  is  no  longer  possible.  We  have 
proved  that  the  natural  emotional  endowment  of  woman 
is  rich  and  varied.  But  there  are  two  things  necessary 
for  achievement :  inherent  aptitude  and  opportunity — 
that  is,  a  favourable  environment  for  expression,  in  which 
power  may  be  directed  into  useful  channels  and  saved 
from  wastefully  expending  itself.  To  deny  genius  to 
women  when  the  opportunity  for  its  development  has 
been  absent  is  obviously  unjust.  The  influence  of  educa- 
tion, and  the  stronger  driving  of  habit  and  social  opinion, 
must  be  taken  into  the  account.  Women  have  up  till  now 
been  without  two  essential  qualities  necessary  for  creating 
—subjectivity  and  initiative.  In  practice  they  have  not 
been  able,  or  only  very  rarely,  to  get  beyond  imitation. 
Through  the  circumstances  of  their  lives  they  have  lacked 


314          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

the  courage  and  conviction,  even  if  opportunity  had 
arisen,  necessary  for  creative  work.  For  the  highest 
achievement  in  the  arts  they  have  missed  the  concentra- 
tion, the  severe  devotion  to  work,  the  control  of  thought 
and  complete  self-restraint,  which  can  come  only  from 
discipline,  from  long  training,  and  freedom.  Yet  I  make 
the  claim  that  woman,  from  her  constitutional  femininity, 
is  a  compound  of  all  those  qualities  that  genius  demands. 
The  channels  of  woman's  energy  have  been  everywhere 
choked.  No  great  creative  art  has  ever  been  produced 
by  a  subjugated  class.  Art  comes  with  freedom,  with 
the  strong  incentive  of  the  communal  spirit,  and  with  the 
sense  of  power.  For  centuries  woman  has  been  arti- 
ficially individualised.  Her  special  function  of  mother- 
hood has  remained  unacknowledged  as  a  communal 
work.  Her  emotional  and  mental  capacities  have  been 
turned  back  upon  herself  and  her  immediate  belongings, 
with  the  result  that  her  social  usefulness  has  been  sup- 
pressed or  thwarted.  The  emotional  feelings  of  woman 
are  ever  pressing,  and  only  need  to  be  brought  into 
stricter  command  in  order  to  achieve.  What  women  will 
accomplish  no  man  can  say. 

One  word  more.  Let  us  look  in  this  new  direction, 
the  direction  of  the  future,  because  it  is  there  that  this 
possible  future  entrance  of  women  into  the  arts  becomes 
important.  We  stand  in  the  first  rush  of  a  new  move- 
ment. It  is  the  day  of  experiments.  The  extraordinary 
enthusiasm  now  sweeping  through  womanhood  reveals 
behind  its  immediate  fevered  expression  a  great  power 
of  emotional  and  spiritual  initiative.  Wide  and  radically 
sweeping  are  the  changes  in  woman's  social  outlook. 


SEXUAL  DIFFERENCES   IN   MIND       315 

So  much  stronger  is  the  promise  of  a  vital  force,  when 
they  are  free  to  enter  and  to  work  in  the  various  depart- 
ments of  the  arts.  It  is  the  commonest  error  to  think 
of  art  as  if  it  stood  outside  the  other  activities  of  life. 
Under  the  cloak  of  art  much  self-amusement  and  vulgar 
self-display  tries  to  justify  itself,  and  many  mercenary 
interests  are  concerned  in  stinting  its  vitality.  All  living 
and  valuable  art  is  really  communal.  It  must  fit  into 
its  right  place  with  all  phases  of  human  activities,  and 
to  do  this  it  must  have  somewhere  in  it  the  social  citizen 
spirit. 

You  see  how  women  stand  in  this  matter.  The  social 
ideal  is  becoming  a  very  near  ideal  to  women.  And  this 
quickening  in  her  of  the  citizen  spirit  may  well  come  to 
revive  our  art  to  a  more  true  and  social  service.  This 
is  no  idle  fancy.  Throughout  the  ages  of  patriarchal 
faith  women  have  been  confined  in  the  home,  so  that  an 
understanding  of  the  needs  of  the  home  is  in  their  blood. 
May  not  the  old  ideals  remain  for  service  and  find  expres- 
sion in  the  new  work?  Much  that  has  passed  with  us  as 
art  has  to  be  swept  away.  Let  women  bring  this  sense 
of  home  into  our  civic  life,  and  surely  it  will  be  reflected 
in  the  arts.  It  is  the  sense  of  fitness  to  the  common  use 
and  needs  of  the  larger  family  of  the  State  that  has  been 
almost  wholly  eliminated  from  our  architecture,  our 
statues,  our  paintings,  our  music,  and  much  of  our  liter- 
ature. The  arts  have  withered  and  lost  their  vitality  in 
our  narrow  and  blighting  commercial  society. 

I  do  not  want  to  weary  the  reader  with  what  can  only 
be  suggestions.  I  am  certain,  however,  that  this  vital 
factor  of  the  home  cannot  safely  be  excluded  from  the 


316          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

State.  Consider  any  one  of  the  old  mediaeval  towns,  with 
its  buildings,  its  cathedral,  its  churches,  its  halls,  its 
homes — all  that  it  contains  a  splendid  witness  to  the  civic 
life  of  its  people.  Contrast  this  with  what  we  have  been 
willing  to  accept  as  art  in  our  industrial  towns.  In  the 
old  days  the  city  was  in  a  very  literal  sense  the  home  of 
its  citizens,  now  it  is  merely  a  centre  of  trade.  Is  it 
unfair  to  connect  this  with  the  subjection  of  women  and 
the  rush  of  male  activities,  that  has  destroyed  the  need 
of  beauty  and  fitness  which  once  was  the  possession  of 
all?  For  art  you  must  have  human  qualities,  and  you 
must  have  emotion.  The  time  has  come  when  we  are 
yielding  to  the  new  forces,  that  yet  are  old.  This  age 
will  leave  its  own  track  behind  it,  and  those,  who  are 
beating  out  the  way  now,  must  start  on  the  right  path- 
freeing  for  the  service  of  the  future  all  the  intellectual 
and  emotional  forces  of  women  as  well  as  men. 

To  think  boldly,  untrammelled  by  conventions  from 
the  past,  to  search  sedulously  for  the  truth  within  them- 
selves and  follow  it  fearlessly,  this  should  be  the  faith 
of  all  those  women  who  love  art.  Let  them  have  the 
courage  of  their  own  deep  emotions.  Let  them  look  for- 
ward into  the  future,  instead  of  clinging  timorously  to 
the  stone  wall  of  their  past  imitation  of  men.  Then, 
indeed,  woman  may  be  freed — able  to  give  expression  to 
those  creative  ideas  which  are  wrapped  up  with  the 
elements  of  her  nature.  But  women  must  beware  of 
sham  emotion  and  lachrymose  sentimentality.  It  is  her 
own  feelings  she  must  voice,  not  the  feelings  that  have 
been  supposed  to  belong  to  her.  Then,  indeed,  the  work 
of  women  will  begin  to  count.  The  two  things  most 


THE   AFFECTABILITY   OF   WOMAN    317 

peculiar  to  woman — her  pursuing-love  of  man  and  her 
need  of  a  child,  will  find  their  expression  in  women's  art. 
It  is  an  appalling  commentary  on  the  condition  of  our 
thoughts  on  this  subject  that  the  pregnant  woman  was 
but  recently  considered  unfit  to  be  represented  in  the 
statues  placed  on  one  of  our  public  buildings.  How 
convincingly  this  speaks  to  women,  "  Be  not  ashamed  of 
anything,  but  to  be  ashamed." 


III. — The  Affectability  of  Woman — Its  Connection 
with  the  Religious  Impulse 

"  Religion  shares  with  the  sexual  impulse  the  unceasing  yearning, 
the  sentiment  of  everlastingness,  the  mystic  absorption  into  the  depths 
of  life,  the  longing  for  the  coalescence  of  individualities  in  an  eternally 
blessed  union,  free  from  earthly  fetters." — IWAN  BLOCH. 

Now,  this  affectability,  that  we  have  found  to  be  a  char- 
acteristic feminine  feature,  leads  us  directly  to  an  inquiry 
into  the  part  religion  has  played  in  the  lives  of  women, 
and  to  the  wider  consideration  of  the  religious  impulse 
in  general,  and  its  close  connection  with  the  sexual 
instinct.  I  had  intended  to  treat  this  subject  in  some 
detail,  especially  in  relation  to  religious  hypnotic  pheno- 
mena, a  matter  of  very  deep  significance  in  estimating 
woman's  character.  I  should  have  liked,  too,  to  have 
traced  the  influence  of  the  early  and  late  Christian  teach- 
ing upon  woman's  mind,  to  have  examined  her  position 
in  the  social  and  domestic  relationship,  and  then  to  have 
contrasted  this  with  the  almost  complete  liberty  and  dis- 
tinction enjoyed  by  women  in  Pagan  culture.  But  the 
field  opened  up  by  these  inquiries  is  too  wide.  The 


318          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

previous  sections  of  this  chapter  have  grown  to  such 
length  that  all  that  is  possible  to  me  now,  if  I  am  to 
have  space  for  the  matters  I  want  still  to  investigate, 
are  a  few  scattered  remarks  and  suggestions  which  seem 
to  me  to  throw  some  light  on  this  important  side  of 
woman's  life. 

No  one  will  question  woman's  aptitude  for  religion, 
whatever  the  opinion  held  as  to  what  the  organic  basis 
of  that  aptitude  may  be.  If  we  accept  that  woman  is 
more  sensitive  to  suggestion,  more  emotional,  and  more 
imaginative  in  her  nature,  it  is  plain  why  religion  affects 
her  more  deeply  than  men.  The  extraordinary  way  in 
which  woman  can  be  influenced  by  religious  suggestion 
is  similar  in  its  nature  to  that  saturation  of  her  innermost 
thoughts  with  love,  which  is  due  in  part,  as  I  believe, 
to  the  special  qualities  of  her  sex-functions,  but  also, 
in  part,  to  the  over-emphasised  sexuality  produced  in 
her  by  an  artificial  existence.  Women  have  accepted 
religious  beliefs  as  they  have  accepted  man's  valuation 
of  temporal  things,  even  although  these  may  be  utterly 
at  variance  with  their  nature  and  their  desires. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  disposition  of  woman  makes 
her  peculiarly  conservative  and  uncritical  of  religious 
beliefs.  Others  suggest  that  there  is  a  "  specific  religious 
sense  "  in  women  related  with  a  higher  standard  of  char- 
acter. This  I  do  not  believe  :  it  is  part  of  the  fiction 
of  woman's  superior  morality.  I  think  in  most  women 
is  hidden  an  immense  appetite  for  life,  an  immense 
capacity  for  expenditure  of  force.  She  does  not  often 
dare  to  listen  to  these  deeps  within  her  soul;  yet  the 
insurgent  voices  fill  her.  There  is  in  the  life  of  most 


THE   AFFECTABILITY   OF   WOMAN    319 

women  something  wanting,  some  general  idea,  some  aim 
to  hold  life  together.  The  effort  of  woman — often 
unconscious,  but  always  present — to  realise  herself  in 
love  has  forced  her  to  practise  duplicity  and  to  accept 
dependence.  And  this  sense  of  dependence  in  her  on 
a  protector,  not  always  forthcoming,  and,  even  when 
present,  not  always  able  to  protect,  has  sent  her  in  search 
of  something  outside  and  beyond  the  known  and  fallible, 
and  has  prepared  her  to  accept  with  eagerness  any 
professed  revelation  of  the  infallible  unknown. 

We  have  seen  again  and  again  in  the  course  of  our 
inquiry  how  deep  and  natural  the  sex  impulse  is  in 
woman,  and  this,  combined  with  the  much  greater  com- 
plexity of  her  sexual  life,  renders  her  position  peculiarly 
liable  to  be  affected  disastrously  by  any  failure  of  love. 
It  must  be  recognised  that  unbounded  piety  is  often  no 
more  than  a  sex  symptom,  proceeding  from  deprivation 
or  from  satiety  of  love,  as  also  from  love's  failure  in 
loveless  marriage.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  connection 
of  the  religious  impulse  with  sexuality  is  a  very  important 
thing  for  women  to  understand.  In  our  achievement  of 
facing  the  truth  in  the  place  of  evasions  about  funda- 
mental things,  lies  the  path,  I  believe  along  which  woman 
can  escape,  if  ever  she  is  to  escape,  from  the  confusion 
of  purposes  that  distract  her  at  present. 

The  intimate  association  between  religious  ideas  and 
feelings  and  the  sexual  life  is  abundantly  proved  by 
the  history  of  all  peoples.  We  first  meet  it  in  the  wide- 
spread early  practice  of  religious  prostitution,  which  has 
aptly  been  called  "  lust  sacrifice."  It  is  even  more  mani- 
fest in  the  ancient  religious  erotic  festivals.  Of  these 


320  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

we  have  examples  in  the  festivals  of  Isis  in  Egypt,  in 
the  Dionysian  and  Eleusinian  festivals  of  the  Hellenes, 
in  the  Roman  Bacchanalia  and  festival  of  Flora,  and 
among  the  Jews  in  the  feast  of  Baal-peor.  In  these 
festivals  the  frenzy  of  religious  mysticism  merges  with 
the  wildest  sexual  licence.  Sexual  mysticism  found  its 
way  also  into  Christianity,  a  fact  to  which  the  lives  of 
the  saints  furnish  an  illuminating  witness.  And  down 
to  the  present  day  we  may  notice  its  manifestations  in 
the  most  diverse  sects  during  any  period  of  religious 
revival.  We  still  meet  with  sexual  excesses  under  the 
shadow  of  faith,  as,  for  instance,  occurred  in  the  late 
revival  in  Wales. 

Havelock  Ellis  has  laid  stress  on  the  leading  signifi- 
cance of  religious  sexual  perceptions,  and  their  special 
importance  on  the  emotional  feminine  character.  This 
subject  is  so  deeply  connected  with  women  that  I  shall, 
I  hope,  be  pardoned  if  I  pause  for  a  moment  to  relate 
a  personal  experience  which  may  help  to  make  this  truth 
more  clear. 

In  my  girlhood  I  was  strongly  drawn  to  religion, 
partly  through  training  and  example,  but  more,  as  I  now 
know,  by  the  affectability  of  my  strongly  feminine  tem- 
perament. My  religious  enthusiasm  was  so  intense  that 
often  I  was  in  a  condition  which  must  have  been  closely 
connected  with  erotic  religious  ecstasy.  Salvation  was 
the  essential  fact  of  my  life;  seeking  for  it  brought  me 
the  excitement  I  unconsciously  craved  of  conflicts  and 
fulfilled  desires.  I  sought  for  God  as  the  passionate 
woman  seeks  her  lover.  I  recall  a  period — I  was 
approaching  womanhood — during  which  I  prayed  con- 


THE   AFFECTABILITY   OF   WOMAN     321 

tinuously  and  earnestly  that  it  might  be  granted  to  me, 
as  to  the  saints  of  old,  to  see  God  and  the  Risen  Christ. 
For  long  I  received  no  answer.  This  did  not  weaken 
my  faith,  but  the  great  trouble  of  my  mind  became  for 
long  a  consciousness  of  my  own  unworthiness.  I  began 
an  absurd  and  childish  system  of  self-punishments,  and 
what  I  thought  would  lead  to  purification.  Then  there 
came  a  night — it  was  summer  and  I  was  looking  from 
my  window  out  at  the  beautiful  evening  sky — when  my 
prayer  was  answered.  I  seemed,  in  very  truth,  to  see 
God.  From  that  time,  and  for  long,  I  lived  in  extra- 
ordinary happiness.  I  am  sure  that  I  must  have  become 
hysterical.  I  felt  that  I  was  set  apart  by  God;  I  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  founding  a  new  religious  sect.  That 
I  made  no  attempt  to  do  this  was  due  to  circumstances, 
which  forced  me  into  active  work  to  gain  my  own  living. 
Religion  continued  very  largely  in  my  life,  but  I  was 
too  healthily  occupied  to  be  favoured  with  any  more 
visions.  But  the  essential  point  in  all  this  is  its  close 
connection  with  my  sexual  development.  So  far  I  had 
never  been  in  love.  I  believe  that  the  natural  sex  desires 
awakened  consciously  in  me  much  later  than  is  common. 
My  need  for  religion  lasted  until  my  sex  needs  were 
fully  satisfied,  then,  little  by  little,  it  faded.  I  want  to 
state  the  truth.  I  did  not  then  trace,  nor  should  I  have 
understood,  this  connection.  The  knowledge  came  to 
me  long  years  afterwards;  how  it  does  not  matter,  but 
I  am  certain  that  in  me  the  religious  impulse  and  the 
sex  impulse  are  one. 

Love  has  in  it  much  of  the  same  supernatural  element 
as  religion.     Both  the  sex-act  and  the  act  of  finding 


322          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

salvation  come  into  intimate  association  with  woman's 
need  of  dependence;  hence  arises  the  remarkable  rela- 
tion between  the  two,  and  that  easy  transition  of  sexual 
emotion  into  religious  emotion  which  is  manifest  in  so 
many  women.  In  both  cases  the  surrender,  the  renuncia- 
tion of  personal  will,  is  an  experience  fraught  with 
passionate  pleasure.  "  Love,"  as  H.  G.  Wells  has  said, 
"is  the  individualised  correlation  of  salvation,  like  that 
it  is  a  synthetic  consequence  of  conflict  and  confusions." 
It  is  true  that  few  women  render  love  the  compliment  of 
taking  it  seriously.  To  many  it  is  merely  this :  a  little 
amusement,  clothes,  a  home,  money  to  buy  new  toys; 
some  mild  pleasure,  a  little  chagrin,  a  little  weariness, 
and  then  the  end.  They  do  not  realise  or  ever  desire 
love  in  its  full  joy  of  personal  surrender.  So,  too,  many 
women  never,  save  in  some  time  of  personal  bewilder- 
ment, desire  or  seek  salvation.  But  such  aimlessness 
brings  its  own  emptiness,  and  women  strain  and  seek 
towards  the  god-head.  For  the  truth  remains,  woman's 
need  of  love  is  greater  than  man's  need,  and  for  this 
reason,  where  love  fails  her,  her  desire  for  salvation  is 
deeper  than  man's  desire.  And  here  again,  and  once 
again,  we  see  the  difference  between  the  sexes.  The 
woman  pays  the  higher  price  for  her  implicit,  unquestion  - 
ing,  and  unconscious  obedience  to  Nature.  And  society 
has  made  the  payment  still  heavier.  Let  us  for  this  last 
pity  women !  The  dice  they  have  had  to  throw  in  the 
game  of  life  is  their  sex,  and  they  have  only  been  allowed 
one  throw,  and  when  they  have  thrown  wastefully — yes, 
it  is  here  that  religion  has  entered  into  the  game.  It 
may  almost  be  said  to  measure  the  failures  and  false 


THE   AFFECTABILITY   OF   WOMAN     323 

boundaries  in  women's  loves.  The  songs  of  love  and 
the  songs  of  faith  are  alike;  and  women  act  worship  as 
also  they  are  often  driven  to  act  love.  The  woman  who 
knows  her  own  heart  must  know  that  this  is  true.  And 
one  cannot  wish  to  see  the  opium  of  religion  taken  from 
women  until  the  game  is  made  a  fairer  one  for  them 
to  play. 

There  is  another  point  to  consider. 
Many  great  thinkers  have  striven  against  this  profound 
and  primitive  connection  between  the  bodily  and  spiritual 
impulses,  which  has  seemed  to  them  an  intrusion  of  evil, 
impairing  their  pure  spirituality  by  the  sexual  life.  They 
have  thus  recommended  and  followed  asceticism  in  order 
to  arrive  at  a  heightened  spirituality.  The  error  here  is 
obvious.  The  spiritual  activities  cannot  be  divided  from 
the  physical ;  as  well  cut  the  flower  off  from  its  roots,  and 
then  expect  to  gather  the  fruit.  This  is  why  sex-denial 

>  and  sex-excesses  so  often  go  together.  Hence  the  un- 
deniable unchastity  of  the  mediaeval  cloisters.  Nor  need 
the  manifestations  of  sex  be  physical.  Erotic  imagina- 
tion and  voluptuous  revelations  are  expressions  of  sex- 
passion.  The  monstrous  sexual  visions  of  the  saints 

ireflect  in  a  typical  manner  the  incredible  violence  of 
the  sexual  perception  of  ascetics. 

We  observe  it,  then,  as  a  fact  of  wide  experience  that 

'the  ascetic  life  is  rooted  really  in  the  functional  impulses; 
and  further,  that  it  is  only  through  sexual  perception 

'that  the  spiritual  and  imaginative  can  be  grasped  and 

reached.  What  the  ascetic  has  done  is  to  fear  overmuch. 
It  must  not  be  overlooked  that  this  continual  battle  with 

'the  primary  force  of  life  is  necessarily  futile  in  accom- 


Y  2 


324          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

plishing  its  own  aim.  For  the  woman  or  man  who,  for 
the  religious  or  any  other  ideal,  wishes  to  overcome  the 
sex-needs  must  keep  the  subject  always  before  her,  on 
his,  consciousness.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  ascetic 
is  always  more  occupied  with  sex  than  the  normal  in- 
dividual. It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  a  truth  few  women 
have  learnt  to  face. 

I  am  not  for  a  moment  denying  that  the  potential 
energy  of  the  sexual  impulse  may  be  transformed  with 
benefit  into  productive  spiritual  activities,  finding  its  vem 
in  religion,  as  also  in  poetry,  in  art,  and  in  all  creative 
work.  Plato  must  have  had  this  in  his  mind  when  h* 
speaks  of  "  thought  as  a  sublimated  sexual  impulse.' 
Schopenhauer,  and  many  other  thinkers,  lay  stress  on  the 
connection  between  the  work  of  productive  genius  anc 
the  modification  of  the  sexual  impulse.  This  may  b( 
illustrated — if  examples  are  needed  in  proof — by  th< 
power  that  has  been  exercised  so  conspicuously  by 
women  throughout  the  world  in  religious  movements 
Two  of  the  greater  festivals  of  the  Catholic  Church,  fo: 
instance,  owe  their  origin  to  the  illumination  of  women 
the  mystic  writings  of  Santa  Teresa  of  Avila  give  classic 
expression  to  the  highest  powers  of  the  spirit.  Tak( 
again  the  part  played  by  women  as  religious  leaders  o: 
the  convents  in  the  early  Middle  Ages.  In  them  womei 
of  spirit  and  capacity  found  a  wide  and  satisfying  career 
many  of  them  showing  great  administrative  ability  anc 
a  quite  remarkable  power  for  government.  In  recen 
times  mention  may  be  made  of  the  Theosophists,  the 
most  important  modern  religious  movement  establishec 
in  this  country  and  led  by  women;  and  of  Christiar 


THE   AFFECTABILITY   OF   WOMAN     825 

Science,  which,  under  the  able  guidance  of  Mrs.  Eddy, 
has  sprung  up  and  flourished.  It  is  instructive  to  note 
that  both  these  religions  are  connected  with,  and  largely 
established  on,  magical  faith  and  esoteric  doctrines  and 
practices.  In  almost  all  the  religions  founded  by  women 
we  may  trace  a  similar  relation  with  hypnotic  phenomena 
which  must  be  regarded  as  closely  dependent  on  sexual 
sources.  The  proof  is  wider  even  than  these  particular 
instances.  It  is  without  doubt  the  transformation  of 
suppressed  sexual  instincts  that  has  made  women  the 
chief  supporters  of  all  religions. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  religious  impulse  has  to  a 
large  extent  lost  its  hold  upon  women.  This  is  true. 
A  new  age  must  expect  to  see  a  new  departure.  As 
women  take  active  participation  in  the  work  of  the  world 
their  sense  of  dependence  and  need  for  protection  will 
diminish,  and  we  may  look  for  a  corresponding  decrease 
in  that  display  of  excessive  religious  emotion  that  de- 
pendence has  fostered.  But  the  needs  of  woman  can 
never  be  satisfied  alone  with*  work.  The  natural  desires 
remain  imperative;  deny  these,  and  there  will  be  left 
only  the  barren  tree  robbed  of  its  fruits.  Sexuality  first 
breathes  into  woman's  spiritual  being  warm  and  blooming 
life. 

The  religious  ascetic  is  not  common  among  us  to-day. 
Yet  the  old  seeking  for  something  is  there.  The  impulse 
towards  asceticism  has,  I  think,  rather  changed  its  form 
than  passed  from  women.  The  place  of  the  female  saint 
is  being  taken  by  the  social  ascetic.  Desire  is  not  now 
set  to  gain  salvation,  but  is  turned  towards  a  heightened 
intellectual  individuation,  showing  itself  in  nervous 


326          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

mental  activity.  No  one  can  have  failed  to  note  the 
immense  egoism  of  the  modern  woman.  Women  are 
still  in  fear  of  life  and  love.  They  have  been  made 
ascetics  through  the  long  exercise  of  restraint  upon  their 
explosively  emotional  temperament.  They  have  re- 
strained their  natures  to  remain  pure.  This  false  ideal 
of  chastity  was  in  the  first  place  forced  upon  them,  but 
by  long  habit  it  has  been  accentuated  and  has  been 
backed  up  by  woman's  own  blindness  and  fear.  Thus 
to-day,  in  their  new-found  freedom,  women  are  seeking 
to  bind  men  up  in  the  same  bonds  of  denial  which  have 
restrained  them.  In  the  past  they  have  over-readily 
imbibed  the  doctrine  of  a  different  standard  of  purity 
for  the  sexes,  now  they  are  in  revolt — indeed,  they  are 
only  just  emerging  from  a  period  of  bitterness  in  relation 
to  this  matter.  Men  made  women  into  puritans,  and 
women  are  arising  in  the  strength  of  their  faith  to  enforce 
puritanism  on  men.  Is  this  malice  or  is  it  revenge?  In« 
any  case  it  is  foolishness.  Bound  up  as  the  sexual 
impulse  is  with  the  entire  psychic  emotional  being,  there 
would  be  left  behind  without  it  only  the  wilderness  of  a 
cold  abstraction.  The  Christian  belief  in  souls  and 
bodies  separate,  and  souls  imprisoned  in  vile  clay,  has 
wrought  terrible  havoc  to  women.  I  believe  the  two- 
soul  and  body — are  one  and  indivisible.  Women  have 
yet  this  lesson  to  learn  :  the  capacity  for  sense-experi- 
ence is  the  sap  of  life.  The  power  to  feel  passion  is  in 
direct  ratio  to  the  strength  of  the  individual's  hold  upon 
life ;  and  may  be  said  to  mark  the  height  of  his,  or  her, 
attainment  in  the  scale  of  being.  It  is  only  another  out 
of  many  indications  of  the  strength  of  sexual  emotion 


THE   AFFECTABILITY   OF   WOMAN     327 

in  women  that  so  many  of  them  are  afraid  of  the  beauty 
and  the  natural  joys  of  love. 

There  is  one  thing  more  I  would  wish  to  point  out 
in  closing  this  very  insufficient  survey  of  an  exceedingly 
complicated  and  difficult  subject.  To  me  it  seems  that 
here,  in  this  finer  understanding  of  love,  we  open  the 
door  to  the  only  remedy  that  will  wipe  out  the  hateful 
fear  of  women,  which  has  wrought  such  havoc  in  the 
relationship  between  the  sexes.  Woman,  restrained  to 
purity,  has  of  necessity  fallen  often  into  impurity.  And 
men,  knowing  this  better  than  woman  herself,  have 
feared  her,  though  they  have  failed  in  any  true  under- 
standing of  the  cause.  Let  me  give  you  the  estimate  of 
woman  which  Maupassant,  in  Moonlight,  has  placed  in 
the  mouth  of  a  priest.  It  is  the  most  illuminating  passage 
in  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  his  stories — 

"  He  hated  woman,  hated  her  unconsciously  and  instinctively 
despised  her.  He  often  repeated  to  himself  the  words  of  Christ  : 
'  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee?  '  And  he  would  add,  '  It 
seems  as  if  God  Himself  felt  discontented  with  that  particular 
creation.'  For  him  was  that  child  of  whom  the  poet  speaks, 
impure,  through  and  through  impure.  She  was  the  temptress  who 
had  led  away  the  first  man,  and  still  continued  her  work  of  per- 
dition ;  a  frail  creature  but  dangerous,  mysteriously  disturbing. 
And  even  more  than  their  sinful  bodies  he  hated  their  loving  souls. 
.  .  .  God,  in  his  opinion,  had  created  woman  solely  to  tempt  man, 
to  put  him  to  the  proof." 

One  lesson  women  and  men  have  to  learn :  so  easy 
to  be  put  into  words,  so  difficult  to  carry  out  by  deeds. 
To  get  good  from  each  other  the  sexes  must  give  love  the 
one  to  the  other.  The  human  heart  in  loneliness  eats 
out  itself,  causes  its  own  emptiness,  creates  its  own 


828          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

terrors.  Nature  gives  lavishly,  wantonly,  and  woman  is 
nearer  to  Nature  than  man  is,  therefore  she  must  give 
the  more  freely,  the  more  generously.  There  can  be  no 
such  thing  as  the  goodness  of  one-half  of  life  without 
the  goodness  of  the  other  half.  Love  between  woman 
and  man  is  mutual ;  is  continual  giving.  Not  by  storing 
up  for  the  good  of  one  sex  or  in  waste  for  the  pleasure 
of  the  other,  but  by  free  bestowing  is  salvation.  Where- 
fore, not  in  the  enforced  chastity  of  woman,  but  in  her 
love,  will  man  gain  his  new  redemption. 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTER  X 

THE  SOCIAL  FORMS  OF  THE  SEXUAL  RELATIONSHIP 

I. — Marriage 

The  difficulty  of  the  problem  of  marriage — Facts  to  be  considered — 
Marriage  and  the  family  among  the  animals — Among  primitive 
peoples — Progress  from  lower  to  higher  forms  of  the  sexual  associa- 
tion— An  examination  of  the  purpose  of  marriage — The  fear  of 
hasty  reforms — Practical  morality — Marriage  an  institution  older 
than  mankind — The  practical  moral  ends  of  marriage — The  racial 
and  individual  factors — No  real  antagonism  between  the  two — 
What  is  good  for  the  individual  must  react  also  for  the  benefit  of 
the  race — Various  systems  of  marriage — Monogamy  the  form  that 
has  prevailed — The  higher  law  of  the  true  marriage — Conventional 
monogamic  marriage — Its  failure  in  practical  morality — Co- 
existence with  polygamy  and  prostitution — Chief  grounds  for  the 
reform  of  marriage — An  indictment  by  Mr.  Wells — Our  marriage 
system  based  upon  the  rights  of  property — This  not  necessarily 
evil — The  Egyptian  marriage  contracts — The  Roman  marriage — 
The  influence  of  Christianity — Asceticism  and  the  glorification 
of  virginity — Confusions  and  absurdities — The  failure  of  our 
sexual  morality — Mammon  marriages — Sins  against  the  race — Two 
examples  from  my  own  experience — The  iniquity  of  our  bastardy 
laws — The  waste  of  love — Free-love — Its  failure  as  a  practical  solu- 
tion— The  reform  of  marriage — The  tendency  to  place  the  form  of 
the  sexual  relationship  above  the  facts  of  love — The  dependence  of 
the  consciousness  of  duty  upon  freedom — The  sexual  responsibility 
of  women. 

II. — Divorce 

Traditional  morality — Practical  conditions  of  divorce — The  moral 
code — This  must  be  modified  to  meet  new  conditions — The  enforced 
continuance  of  an  unreal  marriage — This  the  grossest  form  of 
immorality — The  barbarism  of  our  divorce  laws — The  action  of 
the  Church  and  State — Confusion  and  absurdities — Divorce  relief 
from  misfortune,  not  a  crime — Personal  responsibility  in  marriage — 
A  recognition  of  the  equality  of  the  mother  with  the  father — 
Sanction  by  the  State  of  free  divorce — The  example  of  Egypt  and 
Babylon — The  Roman  divorce  by  consent — The  condemnation  of 
free  divorce  not  the  outcome  of  true  morality — The  immorality 
of  indissoluble  marriage — Loyalty  and  duty  in  love — The  claims 
of  the  child — One  advantage  of  free  divorce — Adoption  of  children 
under  the  State — Growing  disinclination  against  coercive  marriage 
—The  waste  to  the  race— Our  responsibility  to  the  future. 

329 


330          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 


III . — Prostitution 

The  dependence  of  prostitution  upon  marriage — The  extent  and  difficul- 
ties of  the  problem  involved — Prostitution  essentially  a  woman's 
question — Women's  past  attitude  towards  it — The  diffusion  of  disease 
by  means  of  prostitution — Apathy  and  ignorance  of  women — 
This  changing — What  action  will  women  take  in  the  future? — 
Grounds  for  fear — The  White  Slave  Bill — Its  absurd  futility — The 
opinion  of  Bernard  Shaw — Poverty  as  a  cause  of  prostitution — 
This  not  the  only  factor — The  real  evil  lies  deeper — -The  economic 
reformer  —  The  moral  crusade  —  Men's  passions  —  Seduction  — 
These  causes  need  careful  examination — Lippert's  view — Idleness, 
frivolity,  and  love  of  finery  as  causes — The  desire  for  excitement — 
The  need  for  personal  knowledge  of  the  prostitute — What  I  have 
learnt  from  different  members  of  this  profession — The  prostitute's 
attitude  towards  her  trade — The  sale  of  sex  very  profitable  to 
the  expert  trader — The  sexual  frigidity  of  the  prostitute — Im- 
portance and  significance  of  this — A  further  examination  into  the 
causes  of  the  evil — Poverty  seldom  the  chief  motive  for  prosti- 
tution— The  influence  of  inheritance  upon  the  sexual  life — The 
degradation  of  our  legitimate  loves  the  ultimate  cause  of  prosti- 
tution— The  demand  for  the  prostitute  by  men — Causes  of  this 
demand — Repression  of  the  primitive  sexual  instincts  by  civilisa- 
tion— The  foolishness  of  casting  blame  upon  men — The  duplex 
morality  of  the  sexes — Its  influence  on  the  degradation  of  passion — 
Woman's  unprofitable  service  to  chastity — The  connection  with 
prostitution — My  belief  in  passion  as  the  only  source  of  help. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  SOCIAL  FORMS  OF  THE  SEXUAL  RELATIONSHIP 

/. — Marriage 

"  The  race  flows  through  us,  the  race  is  the  drama  and  we  are  the 
incidents.  This  is  not  any  sort  of  poetical  statement ;  it  is  a  statement 
of  fact.  In  so  far  as  we  are  individuals,  in  so  far  as  we  seek  to  follow 
merely  individual  ends,  we  are  accidental,  disconnected,  without  signifi- 
cance, the  sport  of  chance.  In  so  far  as  we  realise  ourselves  as  experi- 
ments of  the  species  for  the  species,  just  in  so  far  do  we  escape  from  the 
accidental  and  the  chaotic.  We  are  episodes  in  an  experience  greater 
than  ourselves." — H.  G.  WELLS. 

"  THERE  is  no  subject,"  says  Bernard  Shaw  in  his 
delightful  preface  to  Getting  Married,  "on  which  more 
dangerous  nonsense  is  talked  and  thought  than  mar- 
riage." And,  in  truth,  it  is  not  easy  to  avoid  such  fool- 
ishness if  we  understand  at  all  the  complexity  of  the 
relationship  of  the  sexes.  Sentiment  rules  our  actions 
in  this  connection,  whereas  our  talk  on  the  subject  is 
directed  by  intellect.  And  the  demands  of  the  emotions 
are  at  once  more  imperious  and  tyrannical,  and  more 
fastidious  and  more  critical,  than  are  the  demands  of  the 
mind.  Thus  the  more  firmly  reason  checks  the  riot  of 
imagination  the  greater  the  danger  of  error.  Of  all  of 
which  what  is  the  moral  ?  This  :  It  is  useless  to  talk 
or  to  think  unless  it  is  also  possible  and  expedient  to  act. 

Be  it  noted,  then,  first  that  our  marriage  customs  and 
laws  are  founded  and  have  been  framed  not  for,  or  by, 
the  personal  needs — that  is,  the  likes  and  dislikes  of 

33 « 


882          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

men  and  women,  but  by  the  exigencies  of  social  and 
economic  necessities.  Now,  from  this  it  will  be  readily 
seen  that  individual  inclinations  are  very  likely,  even  if 
not  bound,  to  clash  with,  as  they  seek  to  conform  to,  the 
usages  of  society.  Always  there  will  tend  to  be  prevalent 
everywhere  a  hostility — at  times  latent,  at  others  active 
— between  these  two  forces;  against  the  special  desires 
of  women  and  men  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  laws  en- 
forced by  a  social  and  economic  community  on  the  other. 
Always  there  will  tend  to  arise  some  who  will  desire  to 
change  the  accepted  marriage  form,  those  who,  consider- 
ing first  the  personal  needs,  will  advocate  the  loosening 
or  the  breaking  of  the  marriage-bond ;  while  others,  look- 
ing only  to  the  stability  which  they  believe  to  be  founded 
in  law  and  custom,  will  seek  to  keep  and  to  make  the 
tie  indissoluble. 

This  perpetual  conflict  is,  it  seems  to  me,  the  greatest 
difficulty  that  has  to  be  faced  in  any  effort  to  readjust  the 
conditions  of  marriage.  In  our  contemporary  society 
there  is  a  deep-lying  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing 
relations  of  the  sexes,  a  yearning  and  restless  need  for 
change.  In  no  other  direction  are  the  confusions  and 
uncertainty  of  the  contemporary  mind  more  manifest. 
The  change  that  has  taken  place  so  rapidly  in  the  atti- 
tudes of  women  and  men  has  brought  with  it  a  very 
strong  and,  what  seems  to  be  a  new,  revolt  against  the 
ignominious  conditions  of  our  amatory  life  as  bound  by 
coercive  monogamy.  We  are  questioning  where  before 
we  have  accepted,  and  are  seeking  out  new  ways  in  which 
mankind  will  go — will  go  because  it  must. 

Yet  just  because  of  this  imperative  urging  the  greater 


MARRIAGE  333 

caution  is  called  for  in  introducing  any  changes  in  the 
laws  or  customs  affecting  marriage.  Present  social  and 
economic  conditions  are  to  a  great  extent  chaotic.  It 
would  be  a  sorry  thing  if  in  haste  we  were  to  establish 
practices  that  must  come  to  an  end,  when  we  have  freed 
ourselves  from  the  present  transition ;  changes  that  would 
not  be  for  the  welfare  of  generations  still  unborn.  It 
will,  however,  hardly  be  denied  by  any  one  that  reform 
is  needed.  All  will  admit  that  a  change  must  be  made 
in  some  direction,  and  an  attempt  to  say  where  it  should 
be  tried  must  therefore  be  faced. 

Does  Nature  give  us  any  help  in  solving  the  problem  ? 
None  whatever.  It  would  seem,  indeed,  that  Nature 
has  in  some  ways  arranged  the  love  relation  in  regard 
to  the  needs  of  the  two  sexes  very  badly.  But  putting 
this  aside  for  the  present,  it  is  clear  that  in  regard  to  the 
form  of  marriage  Nature  has  no  preference;  all  ways 
are  equal  to  her,  provided  that  the  race  profits  by  them, 
or  at  least  does  not  suffer  too  much  from  them.  We 
found  abundant  proof  of  this  in  our  examination  of 
marriage  and  the  family  as  established  already  in  the 
animal  kingdom;  the  modes  of  sexual  association  offer 
great  variety,  no  species  being  of  necessity  restricted  to 
any  one  form  of  union.  Polygamy,  polyandry,  and 
monogamy  all  are  practised.  The  family  is  sometimes 
patriarchal,  though  more  often  it  is  matriarchal,  with  the 
female  the  centre  of  it,  and  her  love  for  the  young 
infinitely  stronger  and  more  devoted  than  the  male, 
though  even  in  this  direction  there  are  many  and  notable 
exceptions.  When  we  came  to  study  the  history  of  man- 
kind we  found  similar  conditions  persisting.  Separate 


334          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

groups  living  as  they  best  could  without  caring  about 
theories;  their  sexual  conduct  ordered  by  a  compromise 
between  the  procreative  needs  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
necessities  of  the  social  conditions  on  the  other.  Mar- 
riage forms,  as  we  understand  them,  were  for  long  un- 
known, the  relations  of  the  sexes  slowly  evolving  from  a 
more  or  less  restricted  promiscuity  to  a  family  union  at 
first  merely  temporary,  and  only  later  becoming  fixed  and 
permanent.  Thus  very  gradually  the  primitive  instinc- 
tive sex  impulses  underwent  expansion,  and  always  in 
the  direction  of  the  control  of  the  individual  desires  in 
the  interest  of  the  family. 

The  unit  of  the  group  or  state  is  the  family,  therefore 
sex-customs  arise  and  laws  are  made  not  to  suit  the  con- 
venience of  the  woman  or  the  man,  but  for  the  preserva- 
tion and  good  of  the  family.  In  a  word,  the  children — 
they  are  the  pivot  about  which  all  regulations  of  marriage 
should  turn. 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  such  control  and  such  laws 
have  never  in  the  past,  and  never  in  the  future  can  be 
fixed  to  one  unchanging  form.  In  proof  of  this  I  must 
refer  the  reader  back  to  the  historical  section  of  this 
book,  where  nothing  stands  out  clearer  than  that  the  most 
diverse  morality  and  customs  prevail  in  matters  of  sex. 
Wherever  for  any  reason  there  arises  a  tendency  towards 
any  form  of  sexual  association,  such  form  is  likely  to  be 
established  as  a  habit,  and,  persisting,  it  comes  to  be 
regarded  as  right,  and  is  enforced  by  custom  and  later 
by  law,  and  also  sometimes  sanctified  by  religion.  It 
comes  to  be  regarded  as  moral,  and  other  forms  become 
immoral. 


MARRIAGE  385 

Now,  all  this  may  seem  to  be  rather  far  away  from 
the  matter  we  are  discussing — the  present  dissatisfaction 
with  our  marriage  system.    But  the  point  I  want  to  make 
clear  is  this  :  there  is  no  rigid  and  unchangeable  code  of 
right  or  wrong  in  the  sexual  relationship.    Our  opinions 
here  are  based  for  the  most  part  on  traditional  morality, 
which  accepts  what  is  as  right  because  it  is  established. 
A  small  but  growing  minority,  looking  in  an  exact  oppo- 
site direction,  turn  to  an  ideal  morality,  considering  the 
facts  of  sex  not  as  they  are,  but  as  they  think  they  ought 
to  be.    Both  these  attitudes  are  alike  harmful.    The  one 
refuses  to  go  forward,  the  other  rushes  on  blindly,  goaded 
by  sentiment  or  by  personal  desires.     And  to-day  the 
greater  danger  seems  to  me  to  rest  with  the  hasty  re- 
formers.   It  is  an  essentially  feminine  crusade.    By  this 
I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  advocated  alone  by  women,  but 
that  in  itself  it  must  be  regarded  as  feminine;  a  view 
which  elevates  a  subjective  ideal  relationship  of  sex 
above  all  objective  facts.    The  desires  and  feelings  and 
sentiments  are  set  up  in  opposition  to  historical  experi- 
ence  and   communal    tradition.     We   hear   much,    and 
especially  in  the  writings  and  talk  of  women,  of  such 
vapid  phrases  as  "  Self-realisation  in  love,"  "  The  en- 
hancement of  the  individual  life,"  and  "  The  spiritualis- 
ing  of   sex."     Such   personal   views,   which   exalt   the 
passing  needs  of  the  individual  above  the  enduring  in- 
terests of  the  race,  are  in  direct  opposition  to  progress. 
What  is  rather  needed  is  an  examination  of  marriage 
and  other  forms  of  our  sexual  relationships  by  prac- 
tical   morality,    by   which    I    mean    the    estimating    of 
their  merits  and  defects  in  relation  to  the  vital   needs 


386          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

of    the    community    under    the    circumstances    of    the 
present. 

To  do  this  we  must  first  clear  our  minds  from  the 
belief  that  regards  our  present  form  of  monogamic  mar- 
riage as  ordained  by  Nature  and  sanctified  by  God.  He 
who  accepts  the  development  of  the  love  of  one  man  for 
one  woman  from  other  and  earlier  forms  of  association 
may  well  look  forward  in  faith  to  a  future  progress  from 
our  existing  marriage  :  yet,  though  eager  for  reform,  he 
will,  remembering  the  slowness  of  this  steady  upward 
progress  in  love's  refinement  in  the  past,  refrain  from 
acting  in  haste,  understanding  the  impossibility  of 
forcing  any  Utopia  of  the  sexes.  No  change  can  be 
made  in  a  matter  so  intimate  as  marriage  by  a  mere 
altering  of  the  law.  Only  such  reforms  as  are  the  natural 
outgrowth  of  an  enlightened  public  feeling  can  be  of 
benefit,  and  thus  permanent  in  their  result.  I  must  go 
further  than  this  and  say  that  what  may  very  possibly 
be  right  for  the  few  cannot  be  regarded  as  practically 
moral  and  good  until  it  can  be  accepted  and  acted  upon 
by  the  people  at  large.  In  sex  more  than  in  any  other 
department  of  life  we  are  all  linked  together;  we  are 
our  brother's  keeper,  and  the  blood  of  the  race  will  be 
required  at  our  hands.  Many  women,  and  some  men, 
do  not  realise  at  all  the  immense  complications  of  sex 
and  the  claims  passion  makes  on  many  natures.  I  am 
sure  that  this  is  the  explanation  of  much  of  the  foolish 
talk  that  one  hears.  I  tried  to  make  clear  in  the  first 
chapters  of  this  book  the  irresistible  elemental  power  of 
the  uncurbed  sexual  instincts.  And  this  force  is  at  least 
as  strong  now  as  it  was  in  the  beginning  of  life.  For 


MARRIAGE  337 

in  sex  we  have,  as  yet,  learnt  very  little.  We  who  are 
living  among  the  sophistication  of  aeroplanes,  the  in- 
heritors of  the  knowledge  of  all  the  ages,  have  still  to 
pass  in  wonder  along  the  paths  of  love,  entering  into  it 
blindly  and  making  all  the  old  mistakes. 

Am  I,  then,  afraid  that  I  plead  thus  for  caution?  No, 
I  am  not.  I  rest  my  faith  in  the  development  of  the  racial 
element  in  love  side  by  side  with  its  personal  ends  of 
physical  and  spiritual  joy.  For  the  sex  impulses,  which 
have  ruled  women  and  men,  will  assuredly  come  to  be 
ruled  by  them.  Just  as  in  the  past  life  has  been  moulded 
and  carried  on  by  love's  selection,  acting  unconsciously 
and  ignorant  of  the  ends  it  followed,  so  in  the  future 
the  race  will  be  developed  and  carried  onwards  by  de- 
liberate selection,  and  the  creative  energy  of  love  will 
become  the  servant  of  women  and  men.  The  mighty 
dynamic  force  will  then  be  capable  of  further  and,  as 
yet,  unrealised  development.  This  is  no  vain  hope.  It 
has  its  proof  in  the  past  history  of  the  selective  power 
of  love.  The  problems  of  our  individual  loves  are 
linked  on  to  the  racial  life.  The  hope  for  improve- 
ment rests  thus  in  a  growing  understanding  of  the 
individual's  relation  to  the  race,  and  in  an  expansion 
of  our  knowledge  and  practice  of  the  high  duties  love 
enforces. 

Let  us  look  now  at  the  practical  direction  of  the 
present.  We  have  reached  these  conclusions  as  a 
starting-point — 

(1)  We  have  inherited  marriage  as  a  social,  nay  more, 
a  racial  institution. 

(2)  The  practical  moral  end  of  marriage,  whether  we 


838          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

regard  it  from  the  wider  biological  standpoint  or  from 
the  narrower  standpoint  of  society,  is  a  selection  of  the 
sexes  by  means  of  love,  having  as  its  social  object  the 
carrying  on  of  the  race,  and  as  its  personal  object  a 
mutual  life  of  complete  physical,  mental,  and  psychical 
union. 

(3)  The  first  of  these,  the  racial  object,  is  the  concern 
of  the  State ;  the  second,  the  personal  need  of  love,  is  the 
concern  of  the  individual  woman  and  man. 

(4)  It  is  the  business  of  the  State  to  make  such  laws 
that  the   interests   of   the   race,   z.  e.   the   children,   are 
protected. 

From  this  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  beyond  such 
care  the  State  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  sexual  relation- 
ship. Here  I  am  placed  in  a  difficulty.  I  cannot  accept 
this  view.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  loves  of  women  and 
men,  even  apart  from  children  being  born  from  such 
union,  can  ever  be  merely  a  personal  matter  between 
the  two  individuals  concerned.  For  this  reason  any 
woman  and  man  is  a  potential  mother  or  father,  and 
may  become  so  in  a  later  union.  We  cannot  break  the 
links  which  bind  the  individual  to  the  race.  I  am  very 
clear  in  my  mind,  however,  of  the  need  of  recognising 
this  perpetual  duality  in  the  objects  of  love.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  bring  forward  any  proof  of  the  profound 
significance  of  the  individual  side  of  the  sexual  passion 
in  the  progress  of  civilisation.  We  may  accept  what 
is  really  proved  by  all  of  us  in  our  acts,  that  love  and 
love's  embrace  are  not  exercised  only,  or  indeed  chiefly, 
for  the  purpose  of  procreation,  but  are  of  quite  equal 
importance  to  the  parents,  necessary  for  the  complete 


MARRIAGE  389 

life — the  physical  and  mental  development  and  the  joy 
of  the  woman  and  the  man. 

It  may  seem,  then,  that  we  are  thus  faced  by  two 
opposing  forces.     That  is  not  the  case.     There  is  real 
harmony  underlying  the  apparent  opposition  of  these 
two  interests,  and  each  is,  indeed,  the  indispensable  com- 
plement of  the  other.    Both  the  personal  and  the  further- 
reaching  racial  objects  of  love  alike  belong  to  the  great 
synthesis  of  life.    I  do  not,  of  course,  deny,  what  every 
one  knows,  that  there  is  at  present  an  opposition  and 
even  conflict  in  certain  individual  cases.     This  is  but 
one  sign  of  chaos  and  the  wastage  of  love.     But  this 
does  not  change  the  truth;  there  can  be  no  gain  for  the 
individual  in  the  personal  ends  of  love  unless  there  is 
also  a  corresponding  gain  to  the  wider  racial  end.    The 
element  of  self-assertion  in  our  loves  must  be  brought 
into  correlation  with  the  universal  and  immortal  develop- 
ment of  life.    This  is  so  evident  that  I  will  not  wait  to 
elaborate  it  further.     I  will  only  point  out  that  all  the 
good,  as  also  all  the  evil,  that  the  individual  is  able  to 
gain  from  love  must  ultimately  react  also  for  the  benefit, 
or  the  wastage,  of  the  race.    Thus  we  have  to  get  ever)' 
good  that  we  can  out  of  our  sexual  experiences  for  our- 
selves for  this  very  reason  that  we  do  not  stand  alone. 
It  is  because  the  race  flows  through  us  that  we  have  to 
make  the  utmost  of  our  individual  opportunities  and 
powers,  so  that,  understanding  our  position  as  guardians 
to  the  generations  yet  unborn,  we  may  use  to  the  very 
full,  but  refrain  from  any  misuse  of  love's  possibilities 
of  joy.    We  know  that  all  we  gain  for  ourselves  we  gain 

in  trust  for  the  race,  and  what  we  lose  for  ourselves  we 

z  a 


340          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

waste  for  the  life  to  come.  This  has,  of  course,  been 
said  before  by  numberless  people,  but  it  seems  to  me 
it  has  been  realised  by  very  few,  and  until  it  is  realised 
to  the  fullest  extent  it  will  never  begin  to  be  practised. 
We  shall  continue  at  a  crossed  purpose  between  our  own 
interests  and  desires  and  the  interests  of  the  race,  and 
shall  go  on  wasting  the  forces  of  love  needlessly  and 
riotously. 

Armed  with  these  conclusions  I  shall  now  attempt 
to  examine  our  existing  marriage  in  its  relation  (i) 
to  the  needs  of  the  children,  (2)  to  the  individual 
needs  apart  from  parentage.  The  extent  of  the  prob- 
lems involved  is  almost  illimitable,  thus  all  that  I  can 
do  is  to  touch  very  briefly  and  insufficiently  on  a  few 
facts. 

As  we  question  in  turn  the  various  systems  of  marriage 
it  becomes  clear  that  monogamy  is  the  form  which  has 
most  widely  prevailed,  and  will  be  likely  to  be  main- 
tained, because  of  its  superior  survival  value.  In  other 
words,  because  it  best  serves  the  interests  of  the  race  by 
assuring  to  the  woman  and  her  children  the  individual 
interest  and  providence  of  the  father.  I  believe  further 
that  monogamy  of  all  the  sexual  associations  serves  best 
the  personal  needs  of  the  parents;  and,  moreover,  that 
it  represents  the  form  of  union  which  is  in  harmony  with 
the  instincts  and  desires  of  the  majority  of  people.  The 
ideal  of  permanent  marriage  between  one  woman  and 
one  man  to  last  for  the  life  of  both  must  persist  as  an 
ideal  never  to  be  lost.  I  wish  to  state  this  as  my  belief 
quite  clearly.  The  higher  love  in  true  marriage  is  the 
veritable  law  of  the  life  to  be;  and  beside  it  all  experi- 


MARRIAGE  341 

ments  in  sensation  will  rot  in  their  emptiness  and  their 
self-love. 

But  this  faith  of  mine  in  an  ideal  and  lasting  union 
does  not  lessen  at  all  my  scepticism  in  the  moral  in- 
efficacy  of  our  present  marriage  system.  It  is  not  the 
particular  form  of  marriage  practised  that,  after  all,  is 
the  main  thing,  but  the  kind  of  lives  people  live  under 
that  form.  The  mere  acceptance  of  a  legally  enforced 
monogamy  does  not  carry  us  very  far  in  practical 
morality;  we  must  claim  something  much  deeper  than 
this. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  base  counterfeit  of  mono- 
gamy that  is  accepted  and  practised  by  many  among  us 
to-day ;  base  because  it  is  a  monogamy  largely  mitigated 
by  clandestine  transitory  loves — tipplings  with  sensation 
and  snackings  at  lust  which  betray  passion.  Facts  of 
daily  observation  may  not  be  shuffled  out  of  consideration 
by  any  hypocrisy.  They  must  be  faced  and  dealt  with. 
Our  marriage  system  is  buttressed  with  prostitution, 
which  thus  makes  our  moral  attitude  one  of  intolerable 
deception,  and  our  efforts  at  reform  not  only  ineffective, 
but  absurd.  Without  the  assistance  of  the  prostitution 
of  one  class  of  women  and  the  enforced  celibacy  of 
another  class  our  marriage  in  its  present  form  could  not 
stand.  It  is  no  use  shirking  it;  if  marriage  cannot  be 
made  more  moral — and  by  this  I  mean  more  able  to 
meet  the  sex  needs  of  all  men  and  all  women — then  we 
must  accept  prostitution.  No  sentimentalism  can  save 
us;  we  must  give  our  consent  to  this  sacrifice  of  women 
as  necessary  to  the  welfare  and  stability  of  society.  But 
with  this  question  I  shall  deal  in  a  later  section  of  this 


842          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

chapter.  There  is,  however,  more  than  this  to  be  said. 
Marriage  is  itself  in  many  cases  a  legalised  form  of 
prostitution.  From  the  standpoint  of  morals,  the  woman 
who  sells  herself  in  marriage  is  on  the  same  level  as  the 
one  who  sells  herself  for  a  night,  the  only  difference  is 
in  the  price  paid  and  the  duration  of  the  contract.  Nay, 
it  is  probably  fair  to  say  that  at  the  lowest  such  sale- 
marriage  results  in  the  greater  evil,  for  the  prostitute 
does  not  bear  children.  If  she  has  a  child  it  has,  as  a 
rule,  been  born  first;  such  is  our  morality  that  mother- 
hood often  drives  her  on  to  the  streets ! 

Any  woman  who  marries  for  money  or  position  is 
departing  from  the  biological  and  moral  ends  of  mar- 
riage. A  child  can  be  born  gladly  only  as  the  fruit  of 
love.  It  is  in  this  direction,  rather  than  in  maintaining 
a  barren  virginity,  that  woman's  chastity  should  be 
guarded.  We  may  excuse  women  on  the  grounds  of 
possible  ignorance,  but,  none  the  less,  have  the  con- 
ditions of  marriage  been  unfavourable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  a  fine  moral  feeling  in  women  or  in  men.  No 
one  can  have  failed  to  feel  surprised  at  the  men  many 
girls  are  content  to  marry;  it  is  one  thing  that  must  be 
set  against  the  claim  women  make  as  the  morally  superior 
sex.  Mr.  Wells,  whom  I  have  already  quoted  in  this 
matter,  places  in  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  characters,  in 
his  recent  book,  Marriage,  a  true  and  terrible  indictment 
of  women. 

"  If  there  was  one  thing  in  which  you  might  think  woman  would 
show  a  sense  of  some  divine  purpose  in  life  it  is  in  the  matter  of 
children,  and  they  show  about  as  much  care  in  the  matter — oh, 
as  rabbits  !  Yes,  rabbits.  I  stick  to  it.  Look  at  the  things  a 


MARRIAGE  343 

nice  girl  will  marry;  look  at  the  men's  children  she'll  submit  to 
bring  into  the  world.  Cheerfully  !  Proudly  !  For  the  sake  of 
the  home  and  the  clothes  !  " 

The  fact  is  our  marriage  in  its  present  legal  form  is 
primarily  an  arrangement  for  securing  the  rights  of  pro- 
perty.   This  in  itself  is  not  necessarily  evil.     Economic 
necessities  cannot  be  ignored  in  any  form  of  the  sexual 
relationship;  it  is  rather  a  readjustment  that  is  called  for 
here.    We  have  seen  how  admirably  a  marriage  system 
based  upon  property  in  the  form  of  free  contracts  worked 
in  Egypt,  and  how  happy  were  the  family  relationships 
under  this  system  of  equal  partnership  between  the  wife 
and  husband.     I  would  again  recommend  the  careful 
study  of  these  marriage  contracts  to  all  those  interested 
in  marriage  reform.     The  contracts  were  never  fixed  in 
one  form;  all  that  was  required  being  that  the  interests 
of  the  woman  and  the  children  were  in  all  cases  pro- 
tected.    Take  again  the  Roman  marriage  which,  in  its 
latest  fine   developments,   has  special  interest,   as   the 
history  of  modern  marriage  systems  may  be  traced  back 
to  it.    The  Romans  came,  like  the  Egyptians,  to  regard 
marriage  as  a  contract  rather  than  a  legal  form.     In  the 
custom  of  usus,  which  supplanted  the  earlier  and  sacred 
confarreatio,  there  was  no  ceremony  at  all.     I  would 
recall  to  the  memory  of  my  readers  the  significant  fact 
that    in    both    these    great    countries   this    freedom    in 
marriage  was  associated  with  the  freedom  of  woman. 
It    must    be    recognised    that    these    two    forces    tac 
together. 

Traditional  customs  in  marriage,  as  in  all  other  de- 
partments of  life,  tend  to  become  worn  out,  and  whenever 


344          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

any  form  presses  too  heavily  on  a  sufficient  number  of 
individuals  acting  against,  instead  of  for,  the  interests 
of  those  concerned,  there  arises  a  movement  towards 
reform.  This  happened  in  Rome,  and  led  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  marriage  by  usus,  which  was  further  modified 
by  the  practice  known  as  conventio  in  manus,  whereby 
the  wife  by  passing  three  nights  in  the  year  from  her 
husband  was  able  to  break  through  the  terrible  right  of 
the  husband's  mantis.  It  is  possible  that  by  some  such 
simple  way  of  escape  we  may  come  to  change  the  pressure 
of  our  coercive  marriage. 

The  briefest  glance  at  our  marriage  system  proves  it 
to  be  founded  on  the  patriarchal  idea  of  woman  as  the 
property  of  man,  which  is  sufficiently  illustrated  by  the 
fact  that  a  husband  can  claim  sums  of  money  as  com- 
pensation from  any  man  who  sexually  approaches  his 
wife,  while  a  woman,  on  her  side,  is  granted  compensa- 
tion in  the  case  of  a  breach  of  promise  of  marriage.  If 
we  seek  to  find  how  this  condition  has  arisen  we  must 
look  backwards  into  the  past.  To  the  fine  legacy  left 
by  the  Roman  law  (which,  regarding  marriage  as  a  con- 
tract, placed  the  two  sexes  in  a  position  of  equal  freedom) 
was  added  the  customs  of  the  barbarians  and  the  base 
Jewish  system,  giving  to  the  husband  rights  in  marriage 
and  divorce  denied  to  the  wife.  Later,  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, came  the  capture  of  marriage  by  the  Church  and  the 
establishment  of  Canon  law,  whereby  the  property-value 
of  marriage  became  inextricably  mingled  with  the  sancti- 
fication  of  marriage  as  a  sacrament,  which,  strengthened 
by  Christian  asceticism  and  the  glorification  of  virginity, 
involved  a  corresponding  contempt  cast  on  all  love 


MARRIAGE  345 

outside  of  legal  marriage.1  The  action  of  this  double 
standard  of  sexual  morality  has  led  on  the  one  side  to 
the  setting-up  of  a  theoretical  ideal,  which,  as  few  are 
able  to  follow  it,  tends  to  become  an  empty  form,  and 
this,  on  the  other  side,  leads  to  a  hidden  laxity  that 
rushes  to  waste  love  out  to  a  swift  finish.  The  puritan 
view  has  left  us  an  inheritance  of  denials.  It  is  small 
wonder,  under  such  circumstances,  that  marriage  is  often 
immoral,  so  often  ending  in  repulsion  and  weariness. 
"  Our  sexual  morality,"  it  has  been  said  with  fine  truth 
by  Havelock  Ellis,  "  is  in  reality  a  bastard  born  of  the 
union  of  property-morality  with  primitive  ascetic  moral- 
ity, neither  in  true  relationship  to  the  vital  facts  of  life." 
It  may,  indeed,  be  doubted  if  apart  from  property 
considerations  we  have  left  any  sexual  morality  at  all. 
How  else  were  it  possible  for  marriage  (which,  if  it  is  to 
fulfil  its  moral  biological  ends,  must  be  based  on  physical 
and  mental  affinity  and  fitness)  to  be  contracted,  as  it 
often  is,  without  knowledge  or  any  true  care  of  these 
essential  factors,  and,  moreover,  to  guarantee  a  per- 
manence of  a  relationship  thus  entered  into  blindly. 
At  least  it  should  be  considered  necessary  that  a  cer- 
tificate of  the  health  of  the  partners  be  obtained  before 
marriage.  What  is  required  to  ensure  our  individual  life 
ought  to  be  demanded  before  we  create  new  life.  Here, 
as  I  believe,  is  one  direction  in  which  the  State  should 
take  action.  Parentage  on  the  part  of  degenerate  human 

1  I  would  refer  my  readers  to  the  Chapters  on  "  Sexual  Morality  "  and 
"  Marriage  "  in  Havelock  Ellis's  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  The  only 
way  to  estimate  aright  the  value  of  our  present  marriage  system  is  to 
examine  the  history  of  that  system  in  the  past.  I  had  hoped  to  have 
space  in  which  to  do  this,  and  it  is  with  real  regret  I  am  compelled  to 
omit  the  section  I  had  written  on  this  subject. 


346          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

beings  is  a  crime,  and  as  such  it  ought  to  be  prevented. 
It  may  be,  and  is,  argued  that  any  action  of  the  State 
in  this  direction  entails  an  interference  with  the  rights 
of  the  individual.  Just  the  same  may  be  said  of  all  laws. 
The  man  who  wishes  to  steal  or  to  kill  either  another 
or  himself  may,  with  equal  reason,  hold  that  it  is  an 
interference  of  the  law  that  he  is  not  permitted  to  follow 
his  inclinations  in  these  matters.  The  sins  that  he  may 
wish  to  commit  are  assuredly  less  evil  in  their  results 
than  the  sin  of  irresponsible  parentage.  You  see  what 
I  mean.  For  if  this  unceasing  crime  against  the  unborn 
could  somehow  be  stopped  there  would  be  so  great  a 
reduction  of  all  other  sins  that  we  might  well  be  freed 
from  many  laws.  As  an  example  I  would  refer  the 
reader  back  to  the  wise  Spartans,  to  consider  how  great 
was  the  gain  to  them  as  individuals  by  their  strict  and 
unceasing  care  for  the  welfare  of  the  race. 

There  are  many  who  attribute  to  mammon-marriages 
all  the  terrible  evils  of  our  disordered  love-life  of  to-day. 
It  is,  therefore,  well  to  remember  that  such  conditions 
are  not  really  a  new  thing,  and  cannot  be  regarded  as 
the  result  of  our  commercialised  civilisation.  The  in- 
trusion of  economics  into  marriage  is  of  very  ancient 
origin,  and  may  be  found  among  peoples  who  are  almost 
primitive.  But  there  is  this  important  difference. 
In  earlier  and  more  vigorous  societies  such  property- 
based  marriages  occur  side  by  side  with  other  forms  of 
sexual  associations,  on  a  more  natural  basis,  which  are 
openly  accepted  and  honoured.  Our  marriage  system 
by  its  rigorous  exclusions  closes  this  way  of  escape. 
Morality  may  be  outraged  to  any  extent  provided 


MARRIAGE  347 

that    law    and    religion    have    been    invoked    in    legal 
marriage. 

Let  me  give  my  readers  two  cases  from  my  own  experi- 
ence ;  facts  speak  more  forcibly  than  any  mere  statements 
of  opinion.  In  a  village  that  I  know  well  a  woman, 
legally  married,  bore  five  idiot  children  one  after  the 
other ;  her  husband  was  a  confirmed  drinker  and  a  mental 
degenerate.  One  of  the  children  fortunately  died.  The 
text  that  was  chosen  as  fitting  for  his  funeral  card  was, 
"Of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  About  the 
same  time  in  the  same  village  a  girl  gave  birth  to  an 
illegitimate  child.  She  was  a  beautiful  girl;  the  father, 
who  did  not  live  in  the  village,  was  strong  and  young; 
probably  the  child  would  have  been  healthy.  But  the 
girl  was  sent  from  her  situation  and,  later,  was  driven 
from  her  home  by  her  father.  At  the  last  she  sought 
refuge  in  a  disused  quarry,  and  she  was  there  for  two  days 
without  food.  When  we  found  her  her  child  had  been 
born  and  was  dead.  Afterwards  the  girl  went  mad.  I 
will  add  no  comment,  except  to  record  my  belief  that 
under  a  saner  social  organisation  such  crimes  against 
love  would  be  impossible. 

As  was  said  years  ago  by  the  wise  Senancour,  "  The 
human  race  would  gain  much  if  virtue  were  made  less 
laborious."  Let  us  view  these  large  questions  in  the 
light  of  their  results  to  the  individual  and  the  race.  This 
practical  morality  will  serve  us  better  than  any  tradi- 
tional code.  So  only  shall  we  learn  to  see  if  we  cannot 
rid  love  of  stress  and  pain  that  is  unendurable.  We 
force  women  and  men  into  rebellion,  into  fearing  con- 
cealments, and  the  dark  and  furtive  ways  of  vice.  For 


348          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT  WOMAN 

this  reason  we  must,  I  believe,  make  the  regulations  of 
law  as  wide  as  possible,  taking  care  only  that  mothers 
and  all  children  must  be  safeguarded,  whether  in  legal 
marriage  or  outside.  All  of  which  forces  the  conclusion  : 
the  same  act  of  love  cannot  be  good  or  bad  just  because 
it  is  performed  in  or  out  of  marriage.  To  hold  such  an 
opinion  is  really  as  absurd  as  saying  that  food  is  more 
or  less  digestible  according  to  whether  grace  is,  or  is  not, 
said  before  the  meal.  All  marriage  forms  are  only 
matters  of  custom  and  expediency. 

In  face  of  the  iniquity  of  our  bastardy  laws  we  may 
well  pause  to  doubt  the  traditional  ideas  of  our  sexual 
code  and  conventional  morality.  It  seems  to  me  that 
in  these  questions  of  sex  we  have  receded  further  and 
further  from  the  reality  of  things,  and  become  blinded 
and  baffled  by  the  very  idols  to  love  that  men  have  set 
up.  One  thing  renders  love  altogether  and  incurably 
wrong,  and  that  is  waste.  The  terribly  high  death-rate 
among  illegitimate  children  alone  suffices  to  illustrate 
the  actual  conditions,  to  say  nothing  of  the  greater  waste 
often  carried  on  in  those  children  who  live.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  maintenance  of  such  unfathered  children  is 
a  scandal  of  our  time.  We  may  surely  claim  that  the 
birth  of  any  child,  without  exception,  must  be  preceded 
by  some  form  of  contract  which,  though  not  necessarily 
binding  the  mother  and  the  father  to  each  other,  will 
place  on  both  alike  the  obligation  of  adequate  fulfilment 
of  the  duties  to  their  child.  This,  I  believe,  the  State 
must  enforce.  If  inability  on  the  part  of  the  parents  to 
make  such  provision  is  proved,  the  State  must  step  in 
with  some  wide  and  fitting  scheme  of  insurance  of  child- 


MARRIAGE  849 

hood.  The  carrying  out  of  even  these  simple  demands 
will  lead  us  a  great  step  forward  in  practical  morality. 
It  will  open  up  the  way  to  a  saner  and  more  beautiful 
future. 

But  here,  in  case  I  am  mistaken  and  thought  to  be 
desiring  the  loosening  of  the  bonds  between  the  sexes, 
I  must  repeat  again  how  firmly  I  accept  marriage  as  the 
best,  the  happiest,  and  the  most  practical  form  of  the 
sexual  association.  The  ideal  union  is,  I  am  certain, 
an  indestructible  bond,  trebly  woven  of  inclination,  duty, 
and  convenience.  Marriage  is  an  institution  older  than 
any  existing  society,  older  than  mankind,  and  reaches 
back,  as  Fabre's  study  of  insects  has  so  beautifully  shown 
us,  to  an  infinitely  remote  past.  Its  forms  are,  there- 
fore, too  fundamentally  blended  with  human  and, 
further  back,  with  animal  society  for  them  to  be  shaken 
with  theories,  or  even  the  practices  of  individuals  or 
groups  of  individuals.  Thus  I  accept  marriage :  I 
believe  that  its  form  must  be  regulated  and  cannot  be 
left  to  the  development  of  individual  desires  against 
the  needs  of  the  race. 

There  are  some  who,  in  seeking  liberation  from  the 
ignominious  conditions  of  our  present  amatory  life,  are 
wishing  to  rid  marriage  from  all  legal  bonds,  and  are 
pointing  to  Free-love  as  the  way  of  escape.  To  me 
this  seems  a  very  great  mistake.  I  admit  the  splendid 
imaginative  appeal  in  the  idea  of  Love's  freedom  as  it 
is  put  forward,  for  instance,  by  the  great  Swedish 
feminist,  Ellen  Key;  I  am  unable  to  accept  it  as 

practical  morality.     This,  I  believe,  should  be  the  only 
sound  basis  for  reform.     The  real  question  is  not  what 


350          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

people  ought  to  do,  but  what  they  actually  do  and  are 
likely  to  go  on  doing.  It  is  these  facts  that  the  idealist 
fails  to  face.  Love  is  a  very  mixed  game  indeed.  And 
all  that  the  wisest  reformer  has  ever  been  able  to  do 
is  to  make  bad  guesses  at  the  solution  of  its  problems. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  the  new  ideal  morality 
is  that  love  and  marriage  must  always  coincide,  and, 
therefore,  when  love  ceases  the  bond  should  be  broken. 
This  in  theory  is,  of  course,  right.  I  doubt  if  it  is,  or 
ever  will  be,  possible  in  practice.  Experience  has  forced 
the  knowledge  that  the  most  passionate  love  is  often  the 
most  likely  to  end  in  disaster.  Nor  do  I  think  that  the 
evil  is  much  lessened  when  no  legal  bond  is  entered 
into.  Those  few  people  who  have  made  a  success  of 
Free-love  would  probably  have  made  an  equal  success 
of  marriage.  I  know  personally  several  cases  in  which 
the  same  woman,  and  many  in  which  the  same  man,  has 
tried  in  succession  legal  marriage  and  free  unions  and 
has  been  equally  unhappy  in  both. 

All  the  facts  seem  to  me  to  point  in  another  direction 
for  reform.  I  do  not  think  that  life's  great  central  pur- 
pose of  carrying  on  the  race  (not  alone  giving  birth  to 
fit  children,  but  the  equally  necessary  work  of  both 
parents  uniting  in  caring  for  and  bringing  them  up)  can 
be  left  safely  to  be  confused  and  wasted  by  its  depend- 
ence on  the  gratification  of  personal  desires.  I  wish  that 
I  thought  otherwise.  It  would  make  it  all  so  much  easier. 
It  is  useless  to  point  back  here  to  the  action  of  love's 
selection  in  the  past  history  of  life.  As  civilisation 
progresses,  and  as  individual  needs  become  elaborated 
and  wealth  increases,  we  tend  to  get  further  and  further 


MARRIAGE  351 

away  from  the  realities  of  love.  We  choose  our  partners 
without  understanding,  and  think  very  little  of  the  needs 
of  the  future.  What  I  want  is  to  free  marriage  from 
those  bonds  that  can  be  proved  to  act  against  practical 
morality.  I  do  not  wish  at  all  to  lessen  its  binding,  only 
to  defend  it  against  the  conventions  of  a  false  and  narrow 
traditional  morality.  In  love,  as  in  every  human  relation- 
ship, it  is  character  that  avails  and  prevails — nothing 
else.  Marriage  is,  or  ought  to  be,  the  most  practically 
moral  institution  that  any  civilisation  is  able  to  produce. 
Women  and  men  are  likely  to  get  out  of  any  form  of 
the  sexual  association  results  in  proportion  to  that  which 
they  put  into  it.  A  great  many  people  put  nothing  into 
marriage,  and  they  are  disappointed  when  they  get  out 
of  it — nothing.  We  shall  put  more  into  marriage,  and 
not  less,  in  proportion  as  we  come  to  understand  it  and 
to  value  its  enduring  importance. 

After  all  it  is  the  people  of  any  race  who  make  mar- 
riage, not  marriage  the  people.  The  form  of  union  is 
but  a  symbol  of  the  people's  character,  their  desires,  and 
capacities.  If  we  have  evolved  the  wrong  women  and 
men,  then  any  reform  of  marriage  is  vain.  Have  we  in 
our  weakened  civilisation  drifted  so  far  from  life  that 
the  inherent  attributes  of  loyalty  and  discipline  to  the 
future  are  no  longer  with  us  in  sufficient  measure  ade- 
quately to  respond  to  the  enduring  realities  of  love? 
The  answer  is  with  women.  We  must  demand  from  the 
fathers  of  our  children,  as  we  demand  from  ourselves, 
loyalty  to  the  well-being  of  the  race;  the  discipline  of 
our  personal  desires  and  loves  that  we  may  maintain 
ourselves  fit  as  the  bearers  and  protectors  of  those  wider 


352          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

interests,  which  belong  not  to  ourselves,  not  to  this 
generation  alone,  but  to  the  life  and  the  future  history 
of  our  race.  Woman  must  again  assert,  as  she  did  in 
the  past,  that  she  is  the  maker  of  men.  She  must  reclaim 
her  right,  held  by  the  female  from  the  beginning  of  life, 
as  the  director  of  love's  selective  power.  And  more  even 
than  this.  Woman  with  man  must  be  the  framer  of  the 
law,  and  the  guide  and  director  of  all  the  relations  of 
the  sexes.  But  it  is  not  sufficient  to  do  this  by  mere 
proclamation.  Virile  nations  are  not  made  by  theories 
or  by  the  blast  of  the  trumpet.  They  are  reared  in  the 
bonds  of  marriage,  and  what  we  incorporate  in  that  bond 
will  be  manifest  in  our  children. 


II. — Divorce 

"  The  result  of  dissolving  the  formal  stringency  of  the  marriage  rela- 
tionship, it  is  sometimes  said,  would  be  a  tendency  to  an  immoral 
laxity.  Those  who  make  this  statement  overlook  the  fact  that  laxity 
tends  to  reach  a  maximum  as  the  result  of  stringency,  and  that  where  the 
merely  external  authority  of  a  rigid  marriage  law  prevails  then  the  ex- 
treme excesses  of  licence  must  flourish.  It  is  also  undoubtedly  true, 
and  for  the  same  reason,  that  any  sudden  removal  of  restraints  neces- 
sarily involves  a  reaction  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  licence.  A  slave  is 
not  changed  in  a  stroke  into  an  autonomous  free  man." — HAVELOCK 
ELLIS. 

In  putting  forward  a  practical  morality  for  marriage 
we  have  to  remember  that  we  are  not  really  uprooting 
traditional  morality.  There  is  no  necessity.  Of  its  own 
decay  the  old  morality  has  fallen  in  a  confusion  of  ruin. 
The  ideal  marriage  is  the  union  of  one  woman  with  one 
man  for  life.  This  we  have  established.  We  have  now 
to  look  at  the  question  from  another  side  and  ask,  How 
far  is  this  ideal  monogamy  possible  in  practice  ?  I  think 
the  answer  must  be  that,  as  we  stand  at  present,  it  is 


DIVORCE  353 

possible  to  very  few.  For  marriage  is  essentially  a  state 
of  bondage — there  is  no  getting  away  from  this — a  state 
which  calls  upon  the  individual  to  surrender  his  personal 
freedom  in  the  interests  of  the  race  and  the  stability  of 
social  structure.  I  have  proved  that  this  bondage  acts 
really  for  the  benefit  and  happiness  of  the  individual,  but 
this  deep  truth  I  must  now  leave.  Marriage  is,  thus,  a 
concession  of  the  individual  to  the  general  welfare  of  the 
future  and  of  the  State.  Now,  with  human  nature  as  it 
is  in  its  present  development,  it  is  clearly  claiming  the 
impossible  to  demand  indissoluble  marriage.  Divorce 
is  really  implicit  in  the  conditions  of  marriage  itself,  and 
the  firmest  believers  in  monogamy  must  be  the  supporters 
of  practical  and  moral  conditions  of  divorce. 

The  moral  code  of  any  society  represents  the  experi- 
ence of  its  members.  But  experience  is  continually 
changing  and  enlarging,  and  moral  codes  must  also 
change  and  enlarge,  or  they  become  worn-out  and  useless. 
Those  people  who  are  unable  to  modify  their  moral  code 
to  fit  new  conditions  and  growth  are  doomed  to  extinction, 
while  the  people  who  adjust  their  customs  and  laws  to 
meet  new  requirements  open  up  the  way  to  move  on,  and 
still  onwards,  in  continual  progress. 

It  were  well  to  remember  this  as  we  come  to  question 
the  conditions  of  our  law  of  divorce.  There  can  be  no 
possible  doubt  that  if  marriage  is  to  remain  and  become 
moral  there  must  be  an  easier  dissolution  of  its  bonds. 
The  enforced  continuance  of  an  unreal  marriage  is  really 
the  grossest  form  of  immorality,  harmful  not  only  to  the 
individuals  concerned,  but  to  the  children.  The  pre- 
judices handed  down  to  us  by  past  tradition  have  twisted 

AA 


354          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

morals  into  an  assertion  that  a  husband  or  wife  who  have 
ceased  to  love  must  continue  to  share  the  rites  of  marriage 
in  mutual  repugnance,  or  live  in  an  unnatural  celibacy. 

The  question  as  to  how  this  condition  arose  may  be 
answered  very  briefly.  The  Church  ordained  that  mar- 
riage is  indissoluble,  but,  this  being  found  impossible  to 
maintain  in  practice,  the  State  stepped  in  with  a  way  of 
escape — a  kind  of  emergency  exit.  But  what  a  make- 
shift it  is !  how  flagrantly  indecent !  how  inconsistent ! 
Adultery  must  be  committed.  To  escape  the  degrada- 
tion of  an  unworthy  partner  another  partner  must  first 
be  sought,  and  love  degraded  in  an  act  of  infidelity. 
Adultery  is,  in  fact,  a  State-endowed  offence  against 
morality,  just  as  the  indissolubility  of  marriage  is  a  theo- 
logical perversion  of  the  plainest  moral  law,  that  the  true 
relationship  between  the  sexes  is  founded  on  love.  This 
bastard-born  morality  of  Church  and  State  is  as  immoral 
in  theory  as  it  is  evil  in  practice. 

For  if  we  look  deeper  it  becomes  clear  that  the  test 
to  be  applied  here  is  the  same  as  in  every  relation  between 
the  sexes :  the  conditions  of  divorce,  like  the  conditions 
of  marriage,  must  be  such  as  best  serve  the  interests  of 
the  race.  This  means,  in  the  first  place,  that  both  part- 
ners in  a  marriage  must  have  the  assurance  that  when  the 
moral  conditions  of  the  contract  are  broken,  or  through 
any  reason  become  inefficient,  they  can  be  liberated, 
without  any  shame  or  idea  of  delinquency  being  attached 
to  the  dissolution.  "  Divorce  is  relief  from  misfortune 
and  not  a  crime,"  to  quote  from  the  admirable  statute- 
book  of  Norway,  a  saying  which  should  be  one  of  uni- 
versal application  in  divorce.  This  must  be  done  not 


DIVORCE  355 

merely  as  an  act  of  justice  to  the  individual;  it  is  called 
for  equally  in  the  interests  of  the  race.  The  woman  or 
man  from  whom  a  divorce  ought  to  be  obtained  is  in 
almost  all  cases  the  woman  or  man  who  ought  not  to  be 
a  parent.  We  may  go  further  than  this.  Divorce  cannot 
be  considered  on  the  physical  side  alone,  there  is  a 
psychological  divorce  which  is  far  deeper,  and  also  far 
more  frequent.  The  woman  or  man  who  for  any  reason 
is  unhappy  in  marriage  is  unfitted  to  be  a  parent  in  that 
marriage,  and  the  way  should  be  opened  to  them,  if  they 
desire,  to  have  other  children  born  in  love  in  a  new 
marriage  with  a  more  fitting  mate.  Our  eyes  are  shut 
to  the  damning  facts  which  confront  us  on  every  side. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  the  drunkard,  the  insane, 
the  syphilitic,  the  consumptive,  parent  bound  in  marriage. 
On  biological  and  economic  grounds  it  is  folly  to  leave 
in  such  hands  the  protection  of  the  race.  It  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  State,  as  I  believe,  to  regulate  the  law  to 
prevent,  as  far  as  possible,  the  birth  of  unfit  children; 
at  least  we  may  demand  that  Church  and  State  cease  to 
grant  their  sanction  to  this  flagrant  sin. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  realise  that  Divorce 
Law  Reform  is  needed  to  bring  our  jurisprudence  up  to 
the  level  of  the  modern  civilised  State.  Our  law  in  this 
respect  lags  far  behind  that  of  other  countries,  and  is 
only  one  example  out  of  many  of  our  hide-bound  attach- 
ment to  ancient  abuses.  The  opposition  shown  against 
the  splendid  and  fearless  recommendations  for  the  exten- 
sion of  the  grounds  of  divorce,  voiced  by  the  Majority 
Report  in  the  recent  Divorce  Law  Commission,  prove 
how  far  we  are  still  from  understanding  the  higher 

AA  2 


356          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

morality  of  marriage.  The  recent  Commission  and  the 
strong  movement  in  favour  of  reform  will,  without  doubt, 
lead  to  a  change  in  the  glaring  injustice  and  inconsist- 
encies of  our  law.  It  is,  however,  certain  that  an  enlight- 
ened divorce  law  must  go  much  further  than  providing 
ways  of  escape  from  marriage.  Such  exits  tend  to 
destroy  the  true  sanctity  of  marriage ;  also  they  are  unable 
to  meet  the  needs  of  all  classes,  no  matter  how  wide  and 
numerous  they  are.  They  can  never  form  the  ultimate 
solution.  They  tend  to  make  marriage  ridiculous,  and 
there  are  real  grounds  in  the  objections  raised  against 
them.  There  must  be  no  special  exits;  the  door  of 
marriage  itself  must  be  left  open  to  go  out  of  as  it  is  open 
to  enter.  This  will  come.  When  personal  responsi- 
bility in  marriage  is  developed,  when  all  the  relationships 
of  sexes  are  founded  on  the  recognition  of  the  equality 
of  the  mother  with  the  father — the  woman  with  the  man, 
then  will  come  divorce  by  mutual  consent. 

Whenever  divorce  is  difficult,  there  woman's  lot  is  hard 
and  her  position  low.  It  is  a  part  of  the  patriarchal 
custom  which  regards  women  as  property.  It  would  be 
easy  to  prove  this  by  the  history  of  marriage  in  the 
civilisations  of  the  past,  as  also  by  an  examination  of  the 
present  divorce  laws  in  civilised  countries.  I  cannot  do 
this,  but  I  make  the  assertion  without  the  least  shadow 
of  doubt.  I  would  point  back  in  proof  to  the  Egyptian 
and  Babylonian  divorce  law,  and  to  the  splendid  develop- 
ment of  Roman  Law  in  this  direction.  Consent  is 
accepted  as  necessary  to  marriage;  it  should  be  the  con- 
dition of  divorce.  This,  I  believe,  is  the  only  solution 
which  women  will  be  content  to  accept,  when  once  they 


DIVORCE  357 

are  awakened  to  their  responsibilities  in  marriage.  And 
here  I  would  quote  the  wise  dictum  of  Mr.  Cunninghame 
Graham  :  "  Divorce  is  the  charter  of  Woman's  Freedom/' 

The  condemnation  of  divorce  and  the  pillorying  of 
divorced  persons  are  not  really  the  outcome  of  any 
concern  for  true  morality,  though  most  people  deceive 
themselves  that  they  are.  They  are  predominantly  the 
outcome  of  ignorance,  of  prejudices  and  false  values, 
based,  on  the  one  hand,  on  the  primitive  patriarchal  view 
of  the  wife  (hence  the  insistence  on  woman's  chastity  and 
the  inequality  of  the  law),  and,  on  the  other,  on  the 
ecclesiastical  doctrine  of  the  indissolubility  of  marriage 
and  the  sin  of  all  relationships  outside  its  bonds.  It  is 
only  when  we  realise  how  deeply  and  terribly  these  worn- 
out  views  have  saturated  and  falsified  our  judgments  that 
we  come  to  understand  the  barbarism  of  our  present  laws 
of  divorce. 

It  is  significant  that  those  who  talk  most  of  the  sanctity 
of  marriage  are  the  very  people  who  fear  most  the  exten- 
sion of  divorce,  seeming  to  believe  that  any  loosening 
of  its  chains  would  lead  to  a  dissolution  of  the  institution 
of  marriage.  One  marvels  at  the  weakness  of  faith 
shown  in  such  a  view.  It  is  not  possible  to  hold  the 
argument  both  ways.  If  the  partners  in  marriage  are 
happy,  why  lock  them  in?  if  not,  why  pretend  that  they 
are?  The  best  argument  I  ever  heard  for  divorce  was 
a  remark  made  to  me  in  a  conversation  with  a  working 
man.  He  said,  "  When  two  people  are  fighting  it  is  not 
very  safe  to  lock  the  door."  After  all,  what  you  do  is 
this  :  you  give  occasion  for  the  locks  to  be  broken. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  loyalty  and  duty  in  relation 


358          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

to  marriage,  and  nothing  that  I  say  now  must  be  thought 
to  lessen  at  all  my  deep  belief  in  the  personal  responsi- 
bility of  the  individual  in  every  relationship  of  the  sexes. 
Living  together  even  after  the  death  of  love  may,  indeed, 
be  right  if  this  is  done  in  the  interests  of  the  children. 
But  it  can  never  be  right  to  compel  such  action  by  law. 
For  then  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  every  hundred  what 
is  regarded  as  duty  is  really  a  question  of  expediency. 
It  is  very  easy  to  deceive  ourselves.  And  it  requires 
more  courage  than  most  people  possess  to  face  the  fact 
that  what  has  perhaps  been  a  happy  and  fruitful  marriage 
has  died  a  slow  and  bitter  death.  But  the  higher  morality 
claims  that  a  child  must  be  born  in  love  and  reared  in 
love,  or,  at  the  lowest,  in  an  atmosphere  from  which  all 
enmity  is  absent.  Only  the  parent  who  is  strong  enough 
to  subordinate  the  individual  right  to  the  rights  of  the 
child  can  safely  remain  in  a  marriage  without  love. 

One  great  advantage  of  free  divorce  is  that  the  wife 
and  husband  would  not  part,  as  is  almost  inevitable  under 
present  conditions,  in  hatred,  but  in  friendship.  This 
would  enable  them  to  meet  one  another  from  time  to  time 
and  unite  together  in  care  of  any  children  of  the  marriage. 
If  such  reasonable  conduct  was  for  any  reason  impossible 
on  the  part  of  either  or  both  parents,  then  the  State  must 
appoint  a  guardian  to  fill  the  place  of  one  parent  or  both. 
No  child  should  be  brought  up  without  a  mother  and  a 
father.  The  adoption  of  children  under  the  State  might 
in  this  way  open  up  fruitful  opportunities  whereby  child- 
less women  and  men  might  gain  the  joys  of  parenthood. 

This  condition  of  safety  by  free-divorce  once  estab- 
lished, would  do  much  to  mitigate  the  hostility  against 


PROSTITUTION  359 

marriage  which  is  so  unfortunately  prevalent  among  us 
to-day.  Practical  morality  is  teaching  us  the  immorality 
of  indissoluble  marriage.  In  Spain,  a  country  that  I 
know  well,  where  marriage  is  indissoluble,  an  increasing 
number  of  men — and  these  the  best  and  most  thoughtful 
—are  refraining  from  marriage  for  this  very  reason.  It 
follows,  as  a  result,  that  in  Spain  the  illegitimate  birth- 
rate is  very  high.  The  difficulty  of  divorce  is  also  a 
strong  factor  that  upholds  prostitution. 

Many  women  and  men  of  exceptional  gifts  and  char- 
acter, conscious  of  an  increasing  intolerance  against  the 
makeshift  morality  imposed  upon  our  sexual  life,  are 
standing  outside  of  marriage  and  evading  parentage. 
For  this  waste  we  are  responsible  to  the  future.  Thus, 
finally,  we  find  this  truth  :  the  principle  of  divorce  reform 
forms  the  most  practical  foundation — and  one  waiting 
ready  to  our  hands — for  the  reformation  of  marriage  and 
the  re-establishment  of  its  sanctity.  It  also  has  direct 
and  urgent  bearing  on  many  of  the  problems  of 
womanhood. 

Ill . — Prostitution 

"  Nought  so  vile  that  on  the  earth  doth  live 
But  to  the  earth  some  special  good  doth  give; 
Nor  nought  so  good  but  strained  from  that  fair  use, 
Revolts  from  true  birth,  stumbling  on  abuse  : 
Virtue  itself  turns  vice  being  misapplied, 
And  vice  sometimes  by  action  dignified." — Romeo  and  Juliet. 

"  In  nature  there's  no  blemish  but  the  mind, 
None  can  be  called  deformed  but  the  unkind." — Twelfth  Night. 

A  brief  and  final  section  of  this  chapter  on  the  sexual 
relationships  must  be  devoted  to  the  question  of  the  con- 
ditions of  prostitution,  which  are  really  part  of  the 


360          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

conditions  of  marriage,  being  correlated  with  that  institu- 
tion in  its  present  coercive  form,  in  fact,  part  of  it  and 
growing  out  of  it. 

The  extent  of  the  problems  involved  here  are  so 
immense,  the  difficulties  so  great  and  the  issues  so  in- 
volved that  I  hesitate  at  making  any  attempt  to  treat 
so  wide  a  subject  briefly  and  necessarily  inadequately 
in  the  short  space  at  my  disposal.  Yet  it  seems  to  me 
impossible  to  take  the  easy  way  and  pass  it  over  in 
silence,  and  I  may  be  able  to  contribute  a  word  or  two 
of  worth  to  this  very  complex  social  phenomenon.  I 
shall  limit  myself  to  the  aspects  of  the  question  that  seem 
to  me  important,  choosing  in  preference  the  facts  about 
which  I  have  some  little  personal  knowledge. 

Essentially  this  is  a  woman's  question.  What  do 
women  know  about  it?  Almost  nothing.  We  are 
really  as  ignorant  of  the  character,  moral,  mental  and 
physical  of  "the  fallen  woman,"  as  if  she  belonged  to 
an  extinct  species.  We  know  her  only  to  pity  her  or  to 
despise  her,  which  is,  in  result,  to  know  nothing  that  is 
true  about  her.  To  deal  with  the  problem  needs  women 
and  men  of  the  finest  character  and  the  widest  sympathy. 
There  are  some  of  them  at  work  now,  but  these,  for  the 
most  part,  are  engaged  in  the  almost  impossible  task  of 
rescue  work,  which  does  not  bring,  I  think,  a  real  under- 
standing of  the  facts  in  their  wider  social  aspect. 

Women  are,  however,  realising  that  they  cannot  con- 
tinue to  shirk  this  part  of  their  civic  duties.  These 
"  painted  tragedies  "  of  our  streets  have  got  to  be  recog- 
nised and  dealt  with ;  and  this  not  so  much  for  the  sake 
of  the  prostitute,  but  for  all  women's  safety  and  the 


PROSTITUTION  361 

health  of  the  race.  The  time  is  not  far  distant  when 
the  mothers  of  the  community,  the  sheltered  wives  of 
respectable  homes,  must  come  to  understand  that  their 
own  position  of  moral  safety  is  maintained  at  the  expense 
of  a  traffic  whose  very  name  they  will  not  mention.  For 
the  prostitute,  though  unable  to  avenge  herself,  has  had 
a  mighty  ally  in  Nature,  who  has  taken  her  case  in  hand 
and  has  avenged  it  on  the  women  and  their  children, 
who  have  received  the  benefits  of  our  legal  marriage 
system.  M.  Brieux  deals  with  this  question  in  Les 
Avaries:  it  is  a  tragedy  that  should  be  read  by  all  women. 
For  this  reason,  if  for  no  other,  the  existence  of  pro- 
stitution has  to  be  faced  by  women.  Apathy  and  ignor- 
ance will  no  longer  be  accepted  as  excuse,  in  the  light  of 
the  sins  against  the  race  slowly  piled  up  through  the 
centuries  by  vice  and  disease.  But  what  will  be  the 
result  of  women's  action  in  this  matter?  What  will 
they  do?  What  changes  in  the  law  will  they  demand? 
The  importance  of  these  questions  forces  itself  upon  all 
those  who  realise  at  all  the  difficulties  of  the  problem. 
What  we  see  and  hear  does  not,  I  think,  give  great  hopes. 
Every  woman  who  dares  to  speak  on  this  great  burked 
subject  seems  to  have  "a  remedy"  ready  to  her  hand. 
What  one  hears  most  frequently  are  unconsidered  de- 
nunciations of  "the  men  who  are  responsible."  For 
example,  I  heard  one  woman  of  education  state  publicly 
that  there  was  no  problem  of  prostitution  !  I  mention 
this  because  it  seems  to  me  a  very  grave  danger,  an 
instance  of  the  feminine  over-haste  in  reform,  which, 
while  casting  out  one  devil,  but  prepares  the  way  for 
seven  other  devils  worse  than  the  first.  Women  seem 


362          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

to  expect  to  solve  problems  that  have  vexed  civilisation 
since  the  beginnings  of  society.  This  attitude  is  a  little 
irritating.  Every  attempt  hitherto  to  grapple  with  pro- 
stitution has  been  a  failure.  Women  have  to  remember 
that  it  has  existed  as  an  institution  in  nearly  all  historic 
times  and  among  nearly  all  races  of  men.  It  is  as  old 
as  monogamic  marriage,  and  maybe  the  result  of  that 
form  of  the  sexual  relationship,  and  not,  as  some  have 
held,  a  survival  of  primitive  sexual  licence.  The  action 
of  women  in  this  question  must  be  based  on  an  educated 
opinion,  which  is  cognisant  with  the  past  history  of 
prostitution,  recognises  the  facts  of  its  action  to-day  in 
all  civilised  countries,  and  understands  the  complexity 
of  the  problem  from  the  man's  side  as  well  as  the 
woman's.  Nothing  less  than  this  is  necessary  if  any  fruit- 
ful change  is  to  be  effected,  when  women  shall  come  to 
have  a  voice  to  direct  the  action  the  State  should  assume 
towards  this  matter.  The  one  measure  which  has 
recently  been  brought  forward  and  passed,  largely  aided 
by  women,  especially  the  militant  Suffragists — I  refer 
to  the  White  Slave  Traffic  Bill — is  just  the  most  useless, 
ill-devised  and  really  preposterous  law  with  which  this 
tremendous  problem  could  be  mocked.  As  Bernard 
Shaw  has  recently  said— 

"The  act  is  the  final  triumph  of  the  vice  it  pretends  to  repress. 
There  is  one  remedy  and  one  alone,  for  the  White  Slave  Traffic. 
Make  it  impossible,  by  the  enactment  of  a  Minimum  Wage  law 
and  by  the  proper  provision  of  the  unemployed,  for  any  woman 
to  be  forced  to  choose  between  prostitution  and  penury,  and  the 
White  Slaver  will  have  no  more  power  over  the  daughters  of 
labourers,  artisans  and  clerks  than  he  (or  under  the  New  Act  she) 
will  have  over  the  wives  of  Bishops." 


PROSTITUTION  363 

Now  all  this  is  true,  but  is  not  all  the  truth.  Remove 
the  economic  pressure  and  no  woman  will  be  driven,  or 
be  likely  to  be  trapped,  into  entering  the  oldest  pro- 
fession in  the  world ;  but  this  does  not  say  that  she  will 
not  enter  it.  The  establishment  of  a  minimum  wage 
will  assuredly  lighten  the  evil,  but  it  will  not  end  pro- 
stitution. The  economic  factor  is  by  no  means  the  only 
factor.  It  is  quite  true  that  poverty  drives  many  women 
into  the  profession — that  this  should  be  so  is  one  of  the 
social  crimes  that  must,  and  will,  be  remedied. 

The  real  problem  lies  deeper  than  this.  Want  is  not 
the  incentive  to  the  traffic  of  sex  in  the  case  of  the  dancer 
or  chorus  girl  in  regular  employment,  of  the  forewoman 
in  a  factory  or  shop  who  earns  steady  wages,  or  among 
numerous  women  belonging  to  much  higher  social  posi- 
tions. These  women  choose  prostitution,  they  are  not 
driven  into  it.  It  is  necessary  to  insist  upon  this.  The 
belief  in  the  efficacy  of  economic  reform  amounts  almost 
to  a  disease — a  kind  of  unquestioning  fanatical  faith. 
Again  and  again  I  have  been  met  by  the  assurance,  made 
by  men  who  should  know  better,  as  well  as  by  women, 
that  no  woman  would  sell  herself  if  economic  causes 
were  removed.  Such  opinion  proves  a  very  plain  ignor- 
ance of  the  history  and  facts  of  prostitution.  It  is  only 
a  little  more  scientific  than  the  view  of  the  woman  moral 
crusader,  who  believes  that  the  "  social  evil "  can  easily 
be  remedied  by  self-control  on  the  part  of  men.  One 
of  the  worst  vices  common  to  women  at  present  is 
spiritual  pride.  One  wonders  if  these  short-cut  re- 
formers have  ever  .been  acquainted  with  a  single  member 
of  this  class  they  hope  to  repress  by  legal  enactments  or 


364          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   WOMAN 

other  measures,  such  as  early  marriage,  better  wages  for 
women,  moral  education,  the  censorship  of  amusements, 
and  so  forth.  It  is  not  so  simple.  You  see,  what  is 
needed  is  an  understanding  of  the  conditions,  not  from 
the  reformer's  standard  of  thought,  but  from  that  of  the 
prostitute,  which  is  a  very  different  matter.  How  can 
any  one  hope  to  reform  a  class  whose  real  lives,  thoughts, 
and  desires  are  unknown  to  them? 

My  effort  to  reach  bed-rock  facts  had  led  me  to  seek 
first-hand  information  from  these  women,  many  of  whom 
I  have  come  to  know  intimately,  and  to  like.  I  have 
learnt  a  great  deal,  much  more  than  from  all  my  close 
study  of  the  problem  as  it  is  presented  in  books. 
Problems  are  never  so  simple  in  the  working  out  as  they 
appear  in  theories.  Moral  doctrines  fall  to  pieces ;  even 
statistics  and  the  estimates  of  expert  investigators  are 
apt  to  become  curiously  unreal  in  the  light  of  a  very 
little  practical  knowledge.  I  have  learnt  that  there  is 
no  one  type  of  prostitute,  no  one  cause  of  the  evil,  no 
one  remedy  that  will  cure  it. 

And  here,  before  I  go  further,  I  must  in  fairness  state 
that  I  have  been  compelled  to  give  up  the  view  held  by 
me,  in  common  with  most  women,  that  men  and  their 
uncontrolled  passions  are  chiefly  responsible  for  this 
hideous  traffic.  It  is  so  comfortable  to  place  the  sins 
of  society  on  men's  passions.  But  as  an  unbiassed 
inquirer  I  have  learnt  that  seduction  as  a  cause  of 
prostitution  requires  very  careful  examination.  We 
women  have  got  to  remember  that  if  many  of  our  fallen 
sisters  have  been  seduced  by  men,  at  least  an  equal 
number  of  men  have  received  their  sexual  initiation  at 


PROSTITUTION  365 

the  hands  of  our  sex.  This  seduction  of  men  by  women 
is  often  the  starting-point  of  a  young  man's  association 
with  courtesans.  It  is  time  to  assert  that,  if  women 
suffer  through  men's  passion,  men  suffer  no  less  from 
women's  greed.  I  am  inclined  to  accept  the  estimate  of 
Lippert  (Prostitution  in  Hamburg)  that  the  principal 
motives  to  prostitution  are  "idleness,  frivolity,  and, 
above  all,  the  love  of  finery."  This  last  is,  as  I  believe, 
a  far  more  frequent  and  stronger  factor  in  determining 
towards  prostitution  than  actual  want,  and  one,  moreover, 
that  is  very  deeply  rooted  in  the  feminine  character.  I 
do  not  wish  to  be  cynical,  but  facts  have  forced  on  me 
the  belief  that  the  majority  of  prostitutes  are  simply 
doing  for  money  what  they  originally  did  of  their  own 
will  for  excitement  and  the  gain  of  some  small  personal 
gift. 

There  are,  of  course,  many  types  among  these  un- 
classed  women,  as  many  as  there  are  in  any  other  class, 
probably  even  more.  Yet,  in  one  respect,  I  have  found 
them  curiously  alike.  Just  as  the  members  of  any  other 
trade  have  a  special  attitude  towards  their  work,  so  pro- 
stitutes have,  I  think,  a  particular  way  of  viewing  their 
trade  in  sex.  It  is  a  mistake  of  sentiment  to  believe 
they  have  any  real  dislike  to  this  traffic.  Such  distaste 
is  felt  by  the  unsuccessful  and  by  others  in  periods  of 
unprofitable  business,  but  not,  I  think,  otherwise.  To 
me  it  has  seemed  in  talking  with  them — as  I  have  done 
very  freely — that  they  regard  the  sexual  embraces  of 
their  partners  exactly  in  the  light  that  I  regard  the  process 
of  the  actual  writing  down  of  my  books — as  something, 
in  itself  unimportant  and  tiresome,  but  necessary  to  the 


366          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

end  to  be  gained.  This  was  first  made  clear  to  me  in  a 
conversation  with  a  member  of  the  higher  demi-monde, 
a  woman  of  education  and  considerable  character. 
"  After  all,"  she  said,  "  it  is  really  a  very  small  thing  to 
do,  and  gives  one  very  little  trouble,  and  men  are  almost 
always  generous." 

This  remarkable  statement  seems  to  me  representative 
of  the  attitude  of  most  prostitutes.  They  are  much 
better  paid,  if  at  all  successful,  than  they  ever  could  be 
as  workers.  The  sale  of  their  sex  opens  up  to  them  the 
same  opportunities  of  gain  that  gambling  on  the  stock- 
exchange  or  betting  on  the  racecourse,  for  instance, 
opens  up  to  men.  It  also  offers  the  same  joy  of  excite- 
ment, undoubtedly  a  very  important  factor.  There  are 
a  considerable  number  of  women  who  are  drawn  to  and 
kept  in  the  profession,  not  through  necessity,  but  through 
neurosis. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  prostitution  is  very  profitable 
to  the  clever  trader.  I  was  informed  by  one  woman, 
for  instance,  that  a  certain  country,  whose  name  I  had 
perhaps  better  withhold,  "  Is  a  Paradise  for  women." 
Quite  a  considerable  fortune,  either  in  money  or  jewels, 
may  be  reaped  in  a  few  months  and  sometimes  in  a  few 
weeks.  But  the  woman  must  keep  her  head ;  cleverness 
is  more  important  even  than  beauty.  I  learnt  that  it  was 
considered  foolish  to  remain  with  the  same  partner  for 
more  than  two  nights,  the  oftener  a  change  was  made  the 
greater  the  chance  of  gain.  The  richest  presents  are 
given  as  a  rule  by  young  boys  or  old  men  :  some  of  these 
boys  are  as  young  as  fifteen  years. 

Now  the  really  extraordinary  thing  to  me  was  that  my 


PROSTITUTION  367 

informant  had  plainly  no  idea  of  my  moral  sensibility 
being  shocked  at  these  statements.  Of  course,  if  I  had 
shown  the  least  surprise  or  condemnation,  she  would  at 
once  have  agreed  with  me — but  I  didn't.  I  was  trying 
to  see  things  as  she  saw  them,  and  my  interest  caused 
her  really  to  speak  to  me  as  she  felt.  I  am  certain  of 
this,  as  was  proved  to  me  in  a  subsequent  conversation, 
in  which  I  was  told  the  history  of  a  girl  friend,  who  had 
got  into  difficulties  and  been  helped  by  my  informant. 
(These  women  are  almost  always  kind  and  generous  to 
one  another.  I  know  of  one  case  in  which  a  woman  who 
had  been  trapped  into  a  bogus  marriage  and  then 
deserted,  afterwards  helped  with  money  the  girl  and 
bastard  child,  also  left  by  the  man  who  had  deceived 
her.)  The  story  was  ended  with  this  extraordinary 
remark,  "It  was  all  my  friend's  own  fault,  she  was  not 
particular  who  she  went  with;  she  would  go  with  any  man 
just  because  she  took  a  fancy  to  him.  I  often  told  her 
how  foolish  she  was,  but  she  always  said  she  could  not 
help  it." 

It  was  then  that  I  realised  the  immensity  of  the  gulf 
which  separated  my  outlook  from  that  of  this  successful 
courtesan.  To  her  to  be  not  particular  was  to  give  one- 
self without  a  due  return  in  money  :  to  me !  Well, 

I  needed  all  my  control  at  that  moment  not  to  let  her 
see  what  I  felt.  I  have  never  been  conscious  of  so  deep 
a  pity  for  any  woman  before,  or  felt  so  fierce  an  anger 
against  social  conditions  that  made  this  degradation  of 
love  possible.  For,  mark  you,  I  know  this  woman  well, 
have  known  her  for  years,  and  I  can,  and  do,  testify  that 
in  many  directions  apart  from  her  trade,  her  virtue,  her 


368          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

refinement  and  her  character  are  equal,  even  if  not 
superior,  to  my  own.  This  is  the  greatest  lesson  I  have 
learnt.  The  degradation  of  prostitution  rests  not  with 
these  women,  but  on  us,  the  sheltered,  happy  women  who 
have  been  content  to  ignore  or  despise  them.  Do  you 
come  to  know  these  women  (and  this  is  very  difficult)  you 
are  just  as  able  to  like  them  and  in  many  ways  to  respect 
them,  as  you  are  to  like  and  to  respect  any  "straight" 
woman.  You  may  hate  their  trade,  you  cannot  justly 
hate  them. 

I  would  like  here  to  bring  forward  as  a  chief  cause  of 
prostitution  a  factor  which,  though  mentioned  by  many 
investigators,1  has  not,  I  think,  been  sufficiently  recog- 
nised. To  me  it  has  been  brought  very  forcibly  home 
by  my  personal  investigations.  I  mean  sexual  frigidity. 
This  is  surely  the  clearest  explanation  of  the  moral  in- 
sensibility of  the  prostitute.  I  have  not  enough  know- 
ledge to  say  whether  this  is  a  natural  condition,  or 
whether  it  is  acquired.  I  am  certain,  however,  that  it  is 
present  in  those  courtesans  whom  I  have  known.  These 
women  have  never  experienced  passion.  I  believe  that 
the  traffic  of  love's  supreme  rite  means  less  to  them  than 
it  would  do  to  me  to  shake  hands  with  a  man  I  disliked. 

Now,  if  I  am  right,  this  fact  will  explain  a  great  deal. 
I  believe,  moreover,  that  here  a  way  opens  out  whereby 
in  the  future  prostitution  may  be  remedied.  This  is  no 
fanciful  statement,  but  a  practical  belief  in  passion  as  a 

1  Lombroso  mentions  the  prevalence  of  sexual  frigidity  among 
prostitutes  (La  Donna  Delinquents,  p.  401).  See  also  Havelock  Ellis, 
Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI.  pp.  268-272.  This  writer  does  not  support 
the  view  of  the  sexual  frigidity  of  prostitutes,  but  in  this,  I  believe,  he 
is  influenced  by  statistics  and  outward  facts,  rather  than  personal 
knowledge  gained  from  the  women  themselves. 


PROSTITUTION  369 

power  containing  all  forces.  To  any  one  who  shares  the 
faith  I  have  been  developing  in  this  book,  what  I  mean 
will  be  evident.  If  we  consider  how  large  a  factor 
physical  sex  is  in  the  life  of  woman,  it  becomes  clear  that 
any  atrophy  of  these  instincts  must  be  in  the  highest 
degree  hurtful.  Moral  insensibility  is  almost  always 
combined  with  economic  dependence.  If  all  mating  was 
founded,  as  it  ought  to  be,  on  love,  and  all  children  born 
from  lovers,  there  would  follow  as  an  inevitable  result  a 
truer  insistence  on  reality  in  the  relationships  of  the 
sexes.  With  a  strengthening  of  passion  in  the  mothers 
of  the  race,  sex  will  return  to  its  right  and  powerful  pur- 
pose; love  of  all  types,  from  the  merest  physical  to  the 
highest  soul  attraction,  will  be  brought  back  to  its  true 
biological  end — the  service  of  the  future. 

I  know,  of  course,  as  I  have  said  already,  that,  just  as 
there  are  many  different  forms  of  prostitution,  there  are 
many  and  varied  types  of  prostitutes,  and  that,  therefore, 
it  is  foolishness  to  hold  fast  in  a  one-sided  manner  to 
a  single  theory.  There  are  undoubtedly  voluptuous 
women  among  prostitutes.  These  I  have  not  considered. 
For  one  thing  I  have  not  met  them.  I  have  preferred 
to  speak  of  the  women  I  have  known  personally.  In  the 
light  of  what  I  have  learnt  from  them,  I  have  come  to 
believe  that  only  in  comparatively  few  cases  does  sexual 
desire  lead  any  woman  to  adopt  a  career  of  prostitution, 
and  in  still  fewer  cases  does  passion  persist.  The  in- 
sistence so  often  made  on  this  factor  as  a  cause  of 
prostitution  is  due,  in  part,  to  ignorance  as  to  the  real 
feelings  of  these  women,  and  also,  in  part,  to  its  moral 
plausibility.  We  are  so  afraid  of  normal  passion  that 


B   B 


370          THE   TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

we  readily  assume  abnormal  passion  to  be  the  cause  of 
the  evil.  But  far  truer  causes  on  the  women's  side  are 
love  of  luxury  and  dislike  of  work.  I  think  the 
estimates  given  by  men  on  this  subject  have  to  be 
accepted  with  great  caution.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  it  is  the  business  of  these  women  to  excite  passion, 
and,  to  do  this,  they  must  have  learnt  to  simulate  passion ; 
and  men,  as  every  woman  who  is  not  ignorant  or  a  fool 
knows,  are  easy  to  deceive.  It  may  also  be  added  that 
to  the  woman  of  strong  sexuality  the  career  of  prostitu- 
tion is  suited.  It  is  possible  that  in  the  future  and  under 
wiser  conditions  such  women  only  will  choose  this 
profession. 

For  the  same  reason  I  have  passed  very  lightly  over 
the  economic  factor  as  a  cause  of  prostitution.  I  believe 
that  this  will  be  changed.  I  do  not  under-estimate  the 
undoubted  importance  of  the  driving  pressure  of  want. 
But,  as  I  have  tried  to  make  clear,  it  does  not  take  us  to 
the  root  of  the  problem.  Poverty  can  only  be  regarded 
as  probably  the  strongest  out  of  many  accessory  causes. 
The  socialists  and  economic  apostles  have  to  face  this  : 
no  possible  raising  of  women's  wages  can  abolish 
prostitution.1 

We  must  hold  firmly  to  the  fact  that  characterlessness, 
which  is  incapable  of  overcoming  opposition  and  takes 
the  path  that  is  easiest,  is  the  result  of  the  individual's 
inherited  disposition,  with  the  addition  of  his,  or  her, 
own  experience;  and  of  these  it  is  the  former  that,  as  a 
rule,  determines  to  prostitution.  Every  kind  of  moral 
and  intellectual  looseness  and  dullness  can,  for  the  most 

1  Women  in  marriage  have  been  for  so  long  protected  by  men  from 
the  necessity  of  doing  work,  that  why  should  we  expect  the  prostitute 
to  prefer  uncongenial  work  ? 


PROSTITUTION  371 

part,  be  traced  to  this  cause.  At  all  events  it  is  the 
strongest  among  many.  Not  alone  for  the  prostitute's 
sake  must  this  subject  be  seriously  approached,  but  for 
society's  sake  as  well.  As  things  stand  with  us  at 
present,  moral  sensitiveness  has  a  poor  chance  of  being 
cultivated,  and  those  who  realise  that  this  is  the  case  are 
still  very  few.  Women  have  yet  to  learn  the  responsi- 
bilities of  love,  not  only  in  regard  to  their  duties  of  child- 
bearing  and  child-rearing,  but  in  its  personal  bearing  on 
their  own  sexual  needs  and  the  needs  of  men.  I  believe 
that  the  degradation  of  our  legitimate  love-relationships 
is  the  ultimate  cause  of  prostitution,  to  which  all  other 
causes  are  subsidiary. 

If  we  look  now  at  the  position  for  a  moment  from  the 
other  side — the  man's  side — a  very  difficult  question 
awaits  us.  It  is  a  question  that  women  must  answer. 
What  is  the  real  need  of  the  prostitute  on  the  part  of 
men?  This  demand  is  present  everywhere  under  civil- 
isation ;  what  are  its  causes  ?  and  how  far  are  these  likely 
to  be  changed  ?  Now  it  is  easy  to  bring  forward  answers, 
such  as  the  lateness  of  marriage,  difficulty  of  divorce, 
and  all  those  social  and  economic  causes  which  may  be 
grouped  together  and  classed  as  "  lack  of  opportunity 
of  legitimate  love."  Without  question  these  causes  are 
important,  but,  like  the  economic  factor  which  drives 
women  into  prostitution,  they  are  not  fundamental ;  they 
are  also  remediable.  They  do  not,  however,  explain 
the  fact,  which  all  know,  that  the  prostitute  is  sought  out 
by  numberless  men  who  have  ample  opportunity  of  un- 
priced love  with  other  women.  Here  we  have  a  prefer- 
ence for  the  prostitute,  not  the  acceptance  of  her  as  a 
substitute  taken  of  necessity.  It  is,  of  course,  easy  to 


372          THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

say  that  such  preference  is  due  to  the  lustful  nature  of 
the  male.  There  was  a  time  when  I  accepted  this  view 
—it  is,  without  doubt,  a  pleasant  and  a  flattering  one  for 
women.  I  have  learnt  the  folly  of  such  shallow  con- 
demnations of  needs  I  had  not  troubled  to  understand. 
Possibly  no  woman  can  quite  get  to  the  truth  here ;  but 
at  least  I  have  tried  to  see  facts  straight  and  without 
feminine  prejudice. 

This  is  what  seems  to  me  to  be  the  explanation. 

We  have  got  to  recognise  that  there  are  primitive  in- 
stincts of  tremendous  power,  which,  held  in  check  by 
our  dull  and  laborious,  yet  sexually-exciting,  civilisation, 
break  out  at  times  in  many  individuals  like  a  veritable 
monomania.  In  earlier  civilisations  this  fact  was  frankly 
recognised,  and  such  instincts  were  prevented  from 
working  mischief  by  the  provision  of  means  wherein  they 
might  expend  themselves.  Hence  the  widespread 
custom  of  festivals  with  the  accompanying  orgy;  but 
these  channels  have  been  closed  to  us  with  a  result  that 
is  often  disastrous.  No  woman  can  have  failed  to  feel 
astonishment  at  the  attractive  force  the  prostitute  may, 
and  often  does,  exercise  on  cultured  men  of  really  fine 
character.  There  is  some  deeper  cause  here  than  mere 
sexual  necessity.  But  if  we  accept,  as  we  must,  the 
existence  of  these  imperatively  driving,  though  usually 
restrained  impulses,  it  will  be  readily  seen  that  prostitu- 
tion provides  a  channel  in  which  this  surplus  of  wild 
energy  may  be  expended.  It  lightens  the  burden  of  the 
customary  restraints.  There  are  many  men,  I  believe, 
who  find  it  a  relief  just  to  talk  with  a  prostitute — a  woman 
with  whom  they  have  no  need  to  be  on  guard.  The 
prostitute  fulfils  that  need  that  may  arise  in  even  the 


PROSTITUTION  373 

most  civilised  man  for  something  primitive  and  strong : 
a  need,  as  has  been  said  by  a  male  writer,  better  than 
I  can  express  it,  "  for  woman  in  herself,  not  woman  with 
the  thousand  and  one  tricks  and  whimsies  of  wives, 
mothers  and  daughters." 

This  is  a  truth  that  it  seems  to  me  it  is  very  necessary 
for  all  women  to  realise.  It  is  in  our  foolishness  and 
want  of  knowledge  that  we  cast  our  contempt  upon  men. 
Women  flinch  from  the  facts  of  life.  These  women 
who,  regarded  by  us  as  "  the  supreme  types  of  vice,"  are 
yet,  from  this  point  of  view,"  the  most  efficient  guardians 
of  our  virtue."  Must  we  not  then  rather  see  if  there  is 
no  cause  in  ourselves  for  blame  ? 

It  has  been  held  for  generations  that  woman  must 
practise  principles  of  virtue  to  counteract  man's  example. 
This  has  led  to  an  entirely  false  standard.  A  solving 
compromise  has  been  found  in  the  ideal  of  purity  in  one 
set  of  women  and  passion  in  another.  And  this  state  of 
things  has  continued  indefinitely  until  it  has  become  to 
some  extent  true.  Numberless  women  have  withered 
in  this  unprofitable  service  to  chastity.  The  sexual  cold- 
ness of  the  modern  woman,  which  sociologists  continually 
refer  to,  exists  mainly  in  consequence  of  this  constant 
system  of  repression.  Female  virtue  has  been  over- 
cultivated,  the  flower  has  grown  to  an  enormous  size, 
but  it  has  lost  its  scent.  A  hypocritical  and  a  lying 
system  has  been  set  up  professing  disbelief  in  that  which 
it  knows  is  necessary  to  the  needs  of  the  individual 
woman  and  to  the  larger  needs  of  the  race.  Physical 
love  is  only  inglorious  when  it  is  regarded  ingloriously. 
Why  this  horror  of  passion?  The  tragedy  of  woman  it 
seems  is  this,  that  with  such  power  of  love  as  she  has  in 


374          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

her  there  should  be  so  little  opportunity  for  its  use — so 
much  for  its  waste.  Those  of  us  who  believe  in  passion 
as  the  supreme  factor  in  race-building,  must  know  that 
this  view  of  its  shamefulness  is  weakening  the  race. 

I,  therefore,  hold  firmly  as  my  belief  that  the  hateful 
traffic  in  love  will  flourish  just  as  long,  and  in  proportion, 
as  we  regard  passion  outside  of  prostitution  with  shame. 
Each  one  of  us  women  is  responsible.  Do  we  not  know 
that  there  is  not  this  difference  between  our  sexual  needs 
and  those  of  men?  Let  us  tear  down  the  old  pretence. 
Do  not  instincts  arise  in  us,  too,  that  demand  expression, 
free  from  all  coercion  of  convention?  And  if  we  stifle 
them  are  we  really  the  better — the  more  moral  sex?  I 
doubt  this,  as  I  have  come  to  doubt  so  many  of  the  lies 
that  have  been  accepted  as  the  truth  about  women. 

The  true  hope  of  the  future  lies  in  the  undivided  recog- 
nition of  responsibility  in  love,  which  alone  can  make 
freedom  possible.  Freedom  for  all  women — the  women 
of  the  home  and  the  women  of  the  streets.  The  prosti- 
tute woman  must  be  freed  from  all  oppression.  We,  her 
sisters,  can  demand  no  less  than  this.  If  we  are  to 
remain  sheltered,  she  must  be  sheltered  too.  She  must 
be  freed  from  the  oppression  of  absurd  laws,  from  the 
terrible  oppression  of  the  police  and  from  all  economic 
and  social  oppression.  But  to  make  this  possible,  these 
women,  who  for  centuries  have  been  blasted  for  our  sins 
against  love,  must  be  re-admitted  by  women  and  men 
into  the  social  life  of  our  homes  and  the  State.  Then, 
and  then  alone,  can  we  have  any  hope  that  the  prostitute 
will  cease  to  be  and  the  natural  woman  will  take  her 
place. 


CONTENTS   OF    CHAPTER   XI 

THE    END   OF   THE   INQUIRY 

The  future  of  Woman — Indications  of  progress — The  re-birth  of 
woman — Woman  learning  to  believe  in  herself — The  sin  of 
sterility — The  waste  of  womanhood — The  change  in  woman's 
outlook — The  quickening  of  the  social  conscience — A  criticism  of 
militancy — It  does  not  correspond  with  the  ideal  for  women — 
The  new  free  relationship  of  the  sexes — The  conditions  which 
make  this  possible — The  recognition  of  love  as  the  spiritual  force 
in  life — The  importance  of  woman's  freedom  to  the  vital  advance 
of  humanity — The  end  brings  us  back  to  the  beginning — The 
supreme  importance  of  Motherhood — Woman  the  guardian  of  the 
Race-life  and  the  Race-soul — This  the  ground  of  her  claim  for 
freedom. 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE    END    OF    THE   INQUIRY 

"  Among  the  higher  activities  and  movements  of  our  time,  the 
struggle  of  our  sisters  to  attain  an  equality  of  position  with  the  strong, 
the  dominant,  the  oppressive  sex,  appears  to  me,  from  the  purely  human 
point  of  view,  most  beautiful  and  most  interesting  :  indeed,  I  regard  it 
as  possible  that  the  coming  century  will  obtain  its  historical  characterisa- 
tions, not  from  any  of  the  social  and  economical  controversies  of  the 
world  of  men,  but  that  this  century  will  be  known  to  subsequent  history 
distinctively  as  that  in  which  the  solution  of  the  '  woman's  question ' 
was  obtained." — GEORGE  HIRTH. 

LOOKING  back  over  the  long  inquiry  which  lies  behind 
us,  we  have  come  by  many  and  various  paths  to  seek 
that  standpoint  from  which  we  started — the  Truth  about 
Woman.  We  must  now  try  to  give  a  brief  answer  to  a 
difficult  question.  What  is  the  future  of  woman?  Are 
we  able  to  recognise  in  the  present  upward  development 
of  the  sex  signs  of  real  progress  towards  better  con- 
ditions? Is  it  within  the  capacity  of  the  female  half  of 
human-kind  to  acquire  and  keep  that  position  of  essential 
usefulness  held  by  the  females  of  all  other  species? 
Will  women  learn  to  develop  their  own  nature  and  to 
express  their  own  genius?  Can  their  present  character- 
istic weakness,  vices,  and  failings  be  really  overcome 
under  different  and  freer  conditions  of  domestic  and 
social  life?  Are  we  of  to-day  justified  in  looking  for- 
ward to  the  new  woman  of  the  future,  with  saner  aspira- 
tions and  wider  aims,  who  lives  the  whole  of  her  life; 

377 


378          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

who  will  restore  to  humanity  harmony  between  the  sexes, 
and  transform  the  miseries  of  love  back  to  its  rightful 
joys?  Can  these  things,  indeed,  be? 

The  answer  is  a  confident  and  joyful  "  Yes !  " 

The  re-birth  of  woman  is  no  dream. 

We  have  become  accustomed  to  listen  to  the  opinion 
voiced  by  men.  We  have  heard  that  belief  in  women 
is  a  symptom  of  youth  or  of  inexperience  of  the  sex, 
which  a  riper  mind  and  wider  knowledge  will  invariably 
tend  to  dissipate.  So  woman  has  come  to  regard  herself 
as  almost  an  indiscretion  on  the  part  of  the  Creator, 
necessary  indeed  to  man,  but  something  which  he  must 
try  to  hide  and  hush  up.  We  have,  in  fact,  put  into 
practice  Milton's  ideal :  "  He,  for  God  only,  she,  for 
God  in  him."  Some  such  arguments  from  the  lips  of 
disillusioned  men  have  been  possible,  perhaps,  with  some 
measure  of  reason.  But  the  time  has  come  for  men  to 
hold  their  peace. 

Woman  is  learning  to  believe  in  herself. 

Now,  so  far,  the  great  result  of  the  long  years  of 
repression  has  been  the  sterility  of  women's  lives. 
Sterility  is  a  deadly  sin.  To-day  so  many  of  our 
activities  are  sterile.  The  women  of  our  richer  classes 
have  been  impotent  by  reason  of  their  soft  living;  the 
women  of  our  workers  have  had  their  vitality  sweated 
out  of  them  by  their  filthy  labours ;  they  could  bear  only 
dead  things.  Life  ought  to  be  a  struggle  of  desire 
towards  adventures  of  expression,  whose  nobility  will 
fertilise  the  mind  and  lead  to  the  conception  of  new 
and  glorious  births.  Women  have  been  forced  to  use 
life  wastefully.  They  have  been  spiritually  sterile; 


THE   END   OF  THE   INQUIRY          379 

consuming,  not  giving  :  getting  little  from  life,  giving 
back  little  to  life. 

But  woman  is  awakening  to  find  her  place  in  the  eternal 
purpose.  She  is  adding  understanding  to  her  feeling 
and  passion. 

Never  before  throughout  the  history  of  modern 
womankind  has  her  own  character  evoked  so  earnest  and 
profound  an  interest  as  to-day  :  never  has  she  considered 
herself  from  so  truly  a  social  standpoint  as  now.  It  is 
true  that  the  change  has  not  yet,  except  in  very  few 
women,  reached  deep  enough  to  the  realities  of  the 
things  that  most  matter.  Women  have  to  learn  to  utilise 
every  advantage  of  their  nature,  not  one  side  only.  They 
will  do  this;  because  they  will  come  to  have  truer  and 
stronger  motives.  They  are  beginning  even  now  to  be 
sifted  clean  through  the  sieve  of  work.  The  waste  of 
womanhood  cannot  for  long  continue. 

One  great  and  hopeful  sign  is  a  new  consciousness 
among  all  women  of  personal  responsibility  to  their  own 
sex.  The  most  fruitful  outgrowth  from  the  present 
agitation  for  the  rights  of  citizens — the  Vote  !  the  symbol 
of  this  awakening — is  a  solidarity  unknown  among 
women  before,  which  now  binds  them  in  one  common 
purpose.  Yet  there  is  a  possible  danger  lurking  in  this 
enthusiasm.  Women  will  gain  nothing  by  snatching  at 
reform.  Many  have  no  eyes  to  see  the  beyond;  they 
are  hurried  forward  by  a  cry  of  wrongs,  while  others 
are  held  back  by  fear  of  change.  Woman  is  by  her 
temperament  inclined  to  do  too  much  or  to  do  nothing. 
Looked  at  from  this  standpoint  of  the  immediate  present, 
when  only  the  semi-hysterical  and  illogical  aspects  of  the 


880          THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WOMAN 

struggle  are  manifest,  the  future  may  appear  dark.  The 
revolution  is  accompanied  by  much  noise  and  violence. 
Perhaps  this  is  inevitable.  I  do  not  know.  There  is, 
what  must  seem  to  many  of  us  who  stand  outside  the 
fight,  a  terrible  wastage,  a  straining  and  a  shattering  of 
the  forces  of  life  and  love.  To  earn  salvation  quickly 
and  riotously  may  not,  indeed,  be  the  surest  way.  It 
may  be  only  a  further  development  of  the  sin  of  woman, 
the  wastage  of  her  womanhood. 

Women  say  that  the  fault  rests  with  men.  Again  I  do 
not  know.  Certainly  it  is  much  easier  and  pleasanter  to 
see  the  mote  in  our  brother's  eye  than  it  is  to  recognise 
a  possible  beam  as  clouding  our  own  sight.  One  of  the 
worst  results  of  the  protection  of  woman  by  man  is  that 
he  has  had  to  bear  her  sins.  Women  have  grown  accus- 
tomed to  this;  they  do  not  even  know  how  greatly  their 
sex  shields  them.  They  will  not  readily  yield  up  their 
scapegoat  or  sacrifice  their  privileges.  But  the  personal 
responsibility  that  is  making  itself  felt  among  women, 
must  teach  them  to  be  ready  to  answer  for  their  own 
actions,  and,  if  need  be,  to  pay  for  them.  Freedom 
carries  with  it  the  acceptance  of  responsibility.  Women 
must  accept  this  :  they  are  working  towards  it. 

In  a  new  and  free  relationship  of  the  sexes  women 
have  at  least  as  much  to  learn  as  men.  The  possession 
of  the  vote  is  not  going  to  transform  women.  Changes 
that  matter  are  never  so  simple  as  that.  Women  estimat- 
ing their  future  powers  tend  to  become  presumptuous. 
One  is  reminded  sometimes  of  the  people  Nietzsche 
describes  as  "  those  who  '  briefly  deal '  with  all  the  real 
problems  of  life."  It  frequently  appears  as  if  the  modern 


THE   END   OF   THE   INQUIRY  381 

woman  expects  to  hold  tight  to  her  old  privileges  as  the 
protected  child,  as  well  as  to  gain  her  new  rights  as  the 
human  woman.  In  a  word,  to  stay  on  her  pedestal  when 
it  is  convenient,  and  to  climb  down  whenever  she  wants 
to.  This  cannot  be.  And  the  grasping  of  both  sides  of 
the  situation  leads  to  what  is  worse  than  all  else — strife 
between  women  and  men.  Just  in  measure  as  the  sexes 
fall  away  from  love  and  understanding  of  each  other, 
do  they  fall  away  from  life  into  the  mere  futility  of 
personal  ends.  It  is  to  go  on  with  man,  and  not  to  get 
from  man,  that  is  the  goal  of  Woman's  Freedom.  There 
are  other  conditions  of  change  that  women  have  to  be 
ready  to  meet.  This  must  be.  For  however  much  some 
may  sigh  for  the  ease  and  the  ignorant  repose  of  the 
passing  generation,  we  cannot  go  back.  It  is  as  impos- 
sible to  live  behind  one's  generation  as  before  it.  We 
have  to  live  our  lives  in  the  pulse  of  the  new  knowledge, 
the  new  fears,  the  new  increasing  responsibilities. 
Women  must  train  themselves  to  keep  pace  with  men. 
There  is  a  price  to  be  paid  for  free  womanhood.  Are 
women  ready  and  willing  to  pay  it?  If  so,  they  must 
cease  to  profit  and  live  by  their  sex.  They  must  come 
out  and  be  common  women  among  common  men.  This, 
as  I  believe,  is  a  better  solution  than  to  bring  men  up 
to  women's  level.  For,  as  I  have  said  before,  I  doubt, 
and  still  doubt,  if  women  are  really  better  than  men. 

If  the  constructive  synthetic  purpose  of  life,  which  I 
have  tried  to  make  the  ruling  idea  of  my  book,  is  that 
all  growth  is  a  succession  of  upward  development 
through  the  action  of  love  between  the  two  sexes,  then 
not  only  must  woman  in  her  individual  capacity — 


382          THE  TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

physically  as  wife  and  mother,  and  mentally  as  home- 
builder  and  teacher — contribute  to  the  further  progress 
of  life  by  a  nobler  use  of  her  sex;  but  the  collective  work 
of  women  in  their  social  and  political  activities  must  all 
be  set  towards  the  same  purpose.  It  is  in  this  light,  the 
welfare  of  the  lives  of  the  future  and  the  building  up  of 
a  finer  race — that  the  individual  and  collective  conduct 
of  women  must  be  judged.  Women  have  talked  and 
thought  too  much  about  their  sex,  and  all  the  time  they 
have  totally  under-estimated  the  real  strength  of  the 
strongest  thing  in  life.  I  think  the  force,  the  power,  the 
driving  intensity  of  love  will  come  as  a  surprise  and  a 
wonder  to  awakened  women.  I  think  they  will  come  to 
realise,  as  they  have  never  realised  before,  the  tremend- 
ous force  sex  is. 

The  Woman's  movement  is  inextricably  bound  up  with 
all  the  problems  of  our  disorganised  love-relationships; 
and  although  politicians  with  their  customary  blindness 
have  chosen  to  treat  it  as  a  side  issue,  it  is,  for  this 
reason,  the  most  serious  social  question  that  has  come 
to  the  front  during  the  century.  Woman's  position  and 
her  efforts  to  regain  her  equality  with  man  can  never  be 
a  thing  apart — a  side  issue — to  a  responsible  State. 
Love  and  the  relationship  of  the  sexes  is  the  foundation 
of  the  social  structure  itself;  it  forms  the  real  centre  of 
all  the  social  and  economic  problems — of  the  population 
problem,  of  the  marriage  problem,  of  the  problems  of 
education  and  eugenics,  of  the  future  of  labour,  of  the 
sweating  question,  and  the  problem  of  prostitution.  As 
the  Woman's  Movement  presses  forward  each  and  all 
of  these  questions  will  press  forward  too.  All  women 


383 

and  men  have  got  to  be  concerned  with  sex  and  its 
problems  until  some  at  least  of  these  wrongs  are  righted. 
That  any  woman  can  ever  regard  love  as  merely  a 
personal  matter,  "an  incident  in  life,"  that  can  be  set 
aside  in  the  rush  of  new  activities,  makes  one  wonder 
if  the  delusions  of  women  about  themselves  can  ever  end. 
This  misunderstanding  of  love  ought  never  to  be  possible 
to  any  woman  or  any  man  :  it  is  going  to  be  increasingly 
difficult  for  it  to  be  possible  for  the  new  woman  and  her 
mate  that  is  to  be.  In  love  all  things  rest.  In  love  has 
gathered  the  strength  to  be,  growing  into  conscious  need 
of  fuller  life,  growing  into  completer  vision  of  the  larger 
day. 

My  faith  in  womanhood  is  strong  and  deep.  The 
manifestations  of  the  present,  many  of  which  seem  to 
give  cause  for  fear,  are,  after  all,  only  the  superficial 
evidence  of  a  deep  undercurrent  of  awakening.  The 
ultimate  driving  force  behind  is  shaping  a  social  under- 
standing in  the  woman's  spirit.  So  surely  from  out  of 
the  wreckage  and  passion  a  new  woman  will  arise. 

For  this  Nature  will  see  to.  Woman,  both  by  physio- 
logical and  biological  causes  is  the  constructive  force  of 
life.  Nothing  that  is  fine  in  woman  will  be  lost,  nothing 
that  is  profitable  will  be  sacrificed.  No,  the  essential 
feminine  in  her  will  be  gathered  in  a  more  complete,  a 
more  enduring  synthesis.  Woman  is  the  predominant 
partner  in  the  sexual  relationship.  We  cannot  get  away 
from  this.  It  is  here,  in  this  wide  field,  where  so  many 
wrongs  wait  to  be  righted,  that  the  thrill  of  her  new 
passion  must  bring  well-being  and  joy.  The  female  was 
the  start  of  life,  and  woman  is  the  main  stream  of  its 


384  THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WOMAN 

force.  Man  is  her  agent,  her  helper  :  hers  is  the  supreme 
responsibility  in  creating  and  moulding  life.  It  is  thus 
certain  that  woman's  present  assertion  of  her  age-long 
rights  and  claim  for  truer  responsibilities  has  its  cause 
rooted  deep  in  the  needs  of  the  race.  She  is  treading, 
blindly,  perhaps,  and  stumblingly,  in  the  steps  laid  down 
for  her  by  Nature ;  following  in  a  path  not  made  by  man, 
one  that  goes  back  to  the  beginning  of  life  and  is  surer 
and  beyond  herself;  thus  she  has  time  as  well  as  right 
upon  her  side,  and  can  therefore  afford  to  be  patient  as 
well  as  fearless. 

"  I  have  caused  thee  to  see  it  with  thine  eyes,  but  thou 
shalt  not  go  over  hither." 

From  the  height  of  Pisgah  there  is  revealed  to  women 
to-day  a  glimpse  of  the  promised  land.  But  shall  we 
enter  therein  to  take  possession  ?  I  believe  not.  It  will 
be  given  to  those  who  follow  us  and  carry  on  the  work 
which  our  passion  has  begun.  For  our  children's  children 
the  joys  of  reaping,  the  feast,  and  the  songs  of  harvest 
home. 

What  matter  ?    We  shall  be  there  in  them. 

Shall  we,  then,  complain  if  for  us  is  the  hard  toil,  the 
doubts,  and  the  mistakes,  the  long  enduring  patience, 
and  the  bitter  fruits  of  disappointment?  We  have 
opened  up  the  way. 

And  is  not  this  one  with  the  very  purpose  of  life? 
We  are  obeying  Nature's  law  in  dedicating  ourselves  and 
our  work  to  those  who  follow  us.  We  have  made  our 
record,  we  can  do  nothing  more.  The  race  flows  through 
us.  All  our  effort  lies  in  this — the  giving  of  all  that  we 


THE   END   OF  THE   INQUIRY  385 

have  been  able  to  gain.    And  it  is  sufficient.    This  is  the 
end  and  the  beginning. 

Thus  we  are  brought  back  to  the  truth  from  which  we 
started.  Women  are  the  guardians  of  the  Race-life  and 
the  Race-soul.  There  is  no  more  to  be  said.  It  is 
because  we  are  the  mothers  of  men  that  we  claim  to  be 
free.  We  claim  this  as  our  right.  We  claim  it  for  the 
sake  of  men,  for  our  lovers,  our  husbands,  and  our  sons ; 
we  claim  it  even  more  for  the  sake  of  the  life  of  the 
race  that  is  to  come. 

"  Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men ; 
Then  ring  the  world's  great  bridals,  chaste  and  calm ; 
Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  human-kind. 
May  these  things  be." 


c  c 


- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


N.B. — This  bibliography  is  intended  as  a  guide  to  the  student; 
it  is  merely  representative,  not  in  any  way  exhaustive. 

The  books  to  which  direct  reference  is  made  are  marked  with 
an  asterisk. 

BIOLOGICAL    PART 

*AUDUBON  :    Scenes   de  la   nature   dans   les   Etats   Unis   (French 

trans.). 

Ornithological  Biography  :  an  Account  of  the  Habits  of  the 
Birds  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

BATESON,  W.  :  Materials  for  the  Study  of  Variation. 

Mendel's  Principles  of  Heredity. 
*BONHOTE,  J.  LEWIS  :  Birds  of  Britain. 

BREHM  :  Tierleben. 

Ornithology,   or  the   Science  of   Birds.     (From  the  text  of 
Brehm.) 

BROOKS,  W.  K.  :  The  Law  of  Heredity. 

The  Foundations  of  Zoology. 
*BUCHNER  :  Mind  in  Animals  (Eng.  trans.). 

Liebe  und  Liebesleben  in  der  Tierwelt. 
*BUTLER,  SAMUEL  :  Life  and  Habit. 

Evolution  Old  and  New. 
*DARWIN,  CHARLES  :  The  Descent  of  Man. 

The  Origin  of  Species. 

The  Variation  of  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication. 

The  Expression  of  the  Emotions  in  Men  and  Animals. 

*DARWIN,  FRANCIS  :  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin. 
*£LLIS,  HAVELOCK  :  Psychology  of  Sex.     Vol.  III. 

*ESPINAS  :  Socie'te's  animales. 

c  c  2  387 


888  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

FABRE,  J.  HENRI  :  Moeurs  des  insectes. 
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Insect  Life  (trans.). 

Social  Life  in  the  Insect  World  (trans.). 
*FORBES,  H.  O.  :  A  Naturalist's  Wanderings. 
*GALTON,  FRANCIS  :  Natural  Inheritance. 

Average  Contribution  of  Each  Several  Ancestor  to  the  Total 
Heritage  of  the  Offspring.     Pro.  Roy.  Soc.,  London,  LXI. 
*GEDDES,    PATRICK:    Articles:   "Reproduction,"    "Sex,"    "Varia- 
tion "  and  "  Selection  "  :  Encycl.  Brit. 
*GEDDES  AND  THOMSON,  J.  A. :  The  Evolution  of  Sex.     (Cont.  Sci. 

Series.)    Rev.  ed. 
Problems  of  Sex. 

*H  ACKER  :  Der  Gesang  der  Vogel. 
*HAECKEL  :  Generelle  Morphologic  der  Organismen. 

Evolution  of  Man  (trans,  by  J.  McCabe). 
HERTWIG  :    The    Biological    Problem    of   To-day    (trans,    by    P. 

Chalmers  Mitchell). 

HOUZEAU  :   Etudes  sur  les  facult^s  mentales  des  animaux  com- 
parts a  celles  de  l'homme. 
*HuosoN,  W.  H.  :  Argentine  Ornithology. 
The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata. 
Birds  and  Man. 

*HUXLEY,  T.  H.  :  A  Manual  of  Invertebrate  Animals. 
KELLOGG  :  Studies  of  Variation  in  Insects. 

Evidence  as  to  Man's  Place  in  Nature. 
LETOURNEAU  :  Evolution  of  Marriage.     (Cont.  Sci.  Series.) 
*MILNE-EDWARDS,  HERNI  :  Le9ons  sur  la  physiologic  et  1'anatomie 

compared  de  l'homme  et  des  animaux. 
A  Manual  of  Zoology  (trans.). 
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MIVART,   ST.   GEORGE  :    Lessons  from  Nature  as  manifested  in 

Mind  and  Matter. 

The  Common  Frog.     (Nat.   Series.) 
Man  and  Apes :   an   Exposition  of  Structural   Resemblance 

upon  the  Questions  of  Affinity  and  Origin. 
On  the  Genesis  of  Species. 

*MORGAN,  C.  LLOYD  :  Animal  Life  and  Intelligence. 
Habit  and  Instinct. 
Animal  Behaviour. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  889 

POULTON,  E.  B.  :  The  Colours  of  Animals. 

PUNNETT,  R.   C.  :  On  Nutrition  and  Sex-determination  in  Man. 

(Proc.  Cambridge  Phil  Soc.,  XII.) 
RIBOT,  TH.  :  Heredity  (Eng.  trans.}. 
ROMANES,  G.  J.  :  Darwin  and  after  Darwin. 
Animal  Intelligence.     (Int.  Sci.  Series.) 
Mental  Evolution  in  Animals. 

*THOMSON,   J.   A.  :    Synthetic  Summary  of  the  Influence  of  the 
Environment  upon  the  Organism.    (Proc.  Roy.  Phys.  Soc., 
Edinburgh,  IX.) 
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The  Science  of  Life. 

VARIGNY,  DE  :  Experimental  Evolution.     (Nat.  Series.) 
VERNON,   H.   M.  :   Variation  in  Animals  and  Plants.     (Int.   Sci. 

Series.) 

VREIS,  HUGO  DE  :  Species  and  Varieties  (trans.). 
*WALLACE,  A.  R.  :  Darwinism. 
*WARD,  LESTER  :  Pure  Sociology. 
*WEISSMANN  :  Essays  upon  Heredity  (trans.). 

The  Germ-plasma  Theory  of  Heredity  (trans.). 

The  Effect  of  External  Influences  on  Development.    Romanes 

Lecture,  Oxford. 

The  Evolution  Theory  (trans,  by  A.  J.  Tompson). 
WILSON,  E.  B.  :  The  Cell  in  Development  and  Inheritance. 


HISTORICAL    PART 

*AME"LINEAU  :  La  Morale  e"gyptienne. 

*ARNOT,  F.  S.  :  Garenganzas. 

*BACHOFEN  :  Das  Mutterrecht.    (French  trans,  of  Intro,  by  Giraud- 

Teulon.) 

BACKER,  Louis  DE  :  Le  Droit  de  la  femme  dans  I'antiquite". 
BADER,  MLLE.  C.  :  La  femme  grecque  :  e'tude  de  la  vie  antique. 

La  femme  romaine  :  £tude  de  la  vie  antique. 
BANCROFT,  H.   H.  :  The  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States  of 

North  America. 

*BECQ  DE  FOUQUI^RES  :  Aspasie  de  Milet. 
*BONWICK,  J.  :  Daily  Life  and  Origin  of  the  Tasmanians. 


890  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BRANDT,  P.  :  Sappho. 
BKUGSCH,  E.  :  Histoire  d'Egypte. 
*BRUNS,  Ivo :  Frauenemancipation  in  Athen. 
*BUDGE,  E.  A.  WALLIS  :  Book  of  the  Dead  (trans.). 
*BURTON,  SIR  R.  F.  :  First  Footsteps  in  East  Africa. 
*BUTTLES,    J.    R.  :    The   Queens   of    Egypt :    with   a   preface   by 

Maspero. 
•  CHARLEVOIX,  LE  P.  DE  :   Histoire  et  description  ge*n6rale  de  la 

Nouvelle  France. 
CRAWLEY  :  The  Mystic  Rose. 
*CROOKE,  W.  :  The  Tribes  and  Castes  of  the  North-west  Provinces 

and  Oudh. 

*CUSHING,  F.  H.  :  Zunie  Folk  Tales. 
*DALTON,  E.  J.  :  Descriptive  Ethnology  of  Bengal. 

DARGUN,  L.  VON  :  Mutterrecht  und  Vaterrecht. 
*DAVY,  J.  :  An  Account  of  the  Interior  of  Ceylon  and  its  Inhabitants. 

DAWSON,  J.  :  Australian  Aborigines. 
*DENNETT,    R.    S.  :    "At  the   Back  of  the   Black   Man's   Mind." 

Journal  of  the  African.     Vol.  I. 
*DiLL  :  Roman  Society.     Three  volumes. 
^DONALDSON,  J.  :  Woman ;  Her  Position  and  Influence  in  Greece 

and  Rome  and  among  the  Early  Christians. 
*ELLIS,  HAVELOCK  :  Man  and  Woman. 

Psychology  of  Sex.     Vol.  VI. 
*ELLIS,  W.  :  History  of  Madagascar. 

FEATHERMAN,  A.  :  A  Social  History  of  the  Races  of  Mankind. 
FINK  :  Primitive  Love  and  Love  Stories. 
*FisoN  AND  HOWITT  :  Kamilaroi  and  Kurnia ;  Group  Marriage  and 

Relationship,   etc. 

*FRAZER,  J.  G.  :  The  Golden  Bough :  The  Magic  Art,  3rd  ed. 
*GIRAUD~TEULON,  A.  :  Les  Origines  de  manage  et  de  la  famille. 
^GLADSTONE,  W.  E.  :  Homeric  Studies.     Vol.  II. 
*GOMPERZ  :  Greek  Thinkers. 
*GRAY,  J.  H.  :  China,  a  History  of  the  Laws,  Manners  and  Customs 

of  the  People. 

*GRIFFITH  :  The  World's  Literature. 
*HARTLAND,  E.  S.  :  Primitive  Paternity. 
*HECKER,  E.  A.  :  History  of  Woman's  Rights. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  391 

*HOMMEL,  F.  :  Geschichte  Babylonians. 

The  Civilisation  of  the  East  (trans.). 
*HOBHOUSE,  L.  T.  :  Morals  in  Evolution. 
HOWARD,  G.  E.  :   History  of  Matrimonial  Institutions. 
HOWITT,  A.  W.  :  The  Native  Tribes  of  South-east  Australia. 

The  Organisation  of  the  Australian  Tribes. 
JACOB,  P.  L.  :  Les  Courtisanes  de  1'ancienne  Rome. 
*JOHNS,  C.  H.  W.  :  Hammurabi,  King  of  Babylon.     The  Oldest 

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Babylonian  and  Assyrian  Laws,  Contracts  and  Letters. 
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LATHAM  :  Descriptive  Ethnology. 
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LEFEVRE,  M.  :  La  Femme  a  travers  1'histoire. 
LEGOUVE,  E.  :  Histoire  morale  des  femmes. 
*LENZ,  C.  S.  :  Geschichte  der  Weiber  im  heroischen  Zeitalter. 
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La  Condition  de  la  femme  dans  les  diverses  races  et  civilisa- 
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*LIPPERT,  J.  :  Kulturgeschichte,  etc. 

Geschichte  der  Familie. 
*LUBBOCK,  LORD  AVEBURY  :  Origin  of  Civilisation. 

Marriage,  Totemism  and  Religion. 
*MACDONALD,  D.  :  Africana. 

MAHAFFY,  J.  P.  :  Social  Life  in  Greece. 
*MAINE  :  Ancient  Law. 
*MARSDEN,  W.  :  History  of  Sumatra. 
MARTIN,   L.   A.  :    Histoire  de  la  femme;   sa  condition  politique, 

civile,  morale  et  religieuse. 

MARX,  V.  :  Die  Stellung  der  Frauen  in  Babylonien. 
*MASON,   OTIS  :   The  Origin  of  Inventions,   a  Study  of  Industry 

among  Primitive  Peoples.     Cont.  Sci.  Series. 
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892  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

*MASPERO,  SIR  G.  :  The  Dawn  of  Civilisation  (trans.). 
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*McCABE,  J.  :  The  Religion  of  Woman. 
*McGEE,  W.  J.  :  The  Beginning  of  Marriage.     (Am.  Anthro.  Soc. 

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*MOMMSEN  :  History  of  Rome. 
*MORGAN,  L.  H.  :  Ancient  Society ;  or  Researches  in  the  Lines  of 

Human  Progress. 
House  and   House-life  of  the  American  Aborigines.     Cont. 

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Systems  of  Consanguinity  and  Affinity  of  the  Human  Family. 

Smithsonian  Contributions. 
MORILLOT,   L.  :    De  la  condition  des  enfants  n^s  hors  mariage 

dans  1'antiquite1  et  au  moyen  Age  en  Europe. 
*MULLER,  W.  MAX  :  Liebespoesie  der  alten  Aegypter. 
*MUNZINGER,  W.  :  Ostafrikanische  Studien. 
*NIETZOLD,  J.  :  Die  Ehe  in  Aegypten,  etc. 
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*PEARSON,  KARL  :  The  Chances  of  Death. 
*PEISER  :  Skizze  der  babylonischen  Gesellschaft. 

PERRY,  W.  C.  :  The  Women  of  Homer. 
*PETHERICK,  J.  :  Egypt,  the  Soudan  and  Central  Africa. 
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*RECLUS,    £LIE  :    Les    Primitifs    (Eng.    trans. ,    Primitive    Folk. 
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*RHYS  AND  BRYNMOR  JONES  :  The  Welsh  People. 
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the  Antonines. 
*SACHOT  :  L'lle  de  Ceylon. 

SAYCE  :  Records  of  the  Past. 
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*SIMCOX,  E.  J.  :  Primitive  Civilisations. 

*SPENCER  AND  GILLEN  :  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia. 
*SPENCER,  H.  :  Descriptive  Sociology. 

STARCKE,  C.  N.  :  The  Primitive  Family. 
*THOMAS,  W.  J.  :  Sex  and  Society. 
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Origin  and  Development  of  Moral  Ideas. 
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MODERN    PART 

ALBERT,  C.  :  Free  Love. 

BEBEL,   H.  :  Woman  in  the  Past,   Present,  and  Future  (trans.). 

BLACKWELL,  ELIZ.  :  The  Human  Element  in  Sex. 

BLASCHKO,  A.  :  Prostitution  in  the  Nineteenth  Century. 


894  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

*BLEASE,  W.  L.  :  The  Emancipation  of  English  Women. 
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Deterioration,"  Oct.  1905 ;  "  Infant  Mortality.  Hudders- 
field  Scheme,"  Dec.  1907. 
FERE,  C.  S.  :  La  Pathologic  des  Emotions.  (Eng.  trans.,  The 

Pathology  of  the  Emotions.) 
L'Instinct  sexuel. 
FREUD,  S.  :  Contributions  to  the  Sexual  Theory  (trans.). 

Article  on  Sex  abstinence,  Sexual  Problem,  March  1908. 
*GALTON,  F.  :  Restrictions  in  Marriage  and  Eugenics  as  a  Factor 

in  Religion. 

GODFREY,  J.  A.  :  The  Science  of  Sex. 

GROSS-HOFFINGER,   A.   J.  :   The  Fate  of  Woman  and  Prostitu- 
tion, etc. 

HALL,  STANLEY  :  Adolescence. 
HAYNES,  E.  S.  P.  :  Our  Divorce  Law. 
HINTON,    JAMES:     MS.,    written    1870,    and    left    unpublished. 

Quoted  by  H.  Ellis,  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI. 
HIRSCHFELD,  M.  :  Sexual  Stages  of  Transition. 
*HIRTH,   GEORGE,  Wege  zur  Liebe. 

Wege  zur  Heimat. 

HOWARD  :  History  of  Matrimonial  Institutions. 
JEANNEL,   J.  :    Prostitution   in   Large  Towns   in   the   Nineteenth 

Century. 

KEY,  ELLEN  :  On  Love  and  Marriage. 
The  Century  of  the  Child. 
The  Woman  Movement. 
KISCH  :  Sexual  Life  of  Women. 
KRAFFT-EBING  :  Psychopathia  Sexualis. 
LAPIE,  PAUL  :  La  Femme  dans  la  famille. 
*LEA  :  History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy. 
*LIPPERT,  H.  :  Prostitution  in  Hamburg. 
LOMBROSO  E  FERRERO  :  La  donna  delinquente,  la  prostituta,  e  la 

donna  normale. 

(Incom.  Eng.  trans.)  The  Female  Offender.     (Eng.  Crimino- 
logy Series.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  395 

LOWENFELD  :  Sexuelleben  und  Nervenleiden. 
*MANTEGAZZA,     P.     L'Amore.       (French    trans.,     L 'amour    dans 

1 'humanit^.) 

The  Art  of  Choosing  a  Wife  (trans.). 
The  Art  of  Choosing  a  Husband  (trans.). 
MARCUSE,  MAX:  Unmarried  Mothers.    (Vol.  XVII.  of  Documents 

of  Great  Towns.) 

*MARRO,  A.  :  La  Puberte"  chez  1'homme  et  chez  la  femme. 
MAYREDER,  ROSA  :  Zur  Kritik  der  Weiblichkeit. 
MILL,  J.  S.  :  Subjection  of  Women. 
*MOIBUS,  P.  J.  :  Stachyologie. 

MOLL,  A.  :  Hypnotism.    (Trans.,  Cont.  Sci.  Series.) 
MORRISON,  W.  D.  :  Crime  and  its  Causes. 
*MORTIMER,  GEOFFREY  (W.  M.  GALLICHAN)  :  Chapters  on  Human 

Love. 

NEWMAN,  G.  :  Infant  Mortality. 
NORTHCOTE,  H.  :  Christianity  and  Sex  Problems. 
PARENT-DUCHATELET,  A.  J.   B.  :  De  la  prostitution  dans  la  ville 

de  Paris. 

PARSONS,  C.  E.  :  The  Family. 
*PEARSON,  KARL  :  The  Chances  of  Death. 
Ethics  of  Free  Thought. 
The  Groundwork  of  Eugenics. 
PE"CHIN  :  La  PueViculture  avant  la  naissance. 
RYAN,  M.  :  Prostitution  in  London,  with  a  Comparative  View  of 

that  of  Paris  and  New  York  (in  1839). 
SANGER,  W.  M.  :  The  History  of  Prostitution. 
SCHMID,  MARIE  VON  :  Mutterdienst. 
*SCHREINER,  OLIVE  :  Woman  and  Labour. 

The   Woman    Movement   of   our   Day.      (Harper's   Bazaar, 

Jan.  1902.) 

SENANCOUR  :  De  1'amour. 
*SHAW,  G.  B.  :  Man  and  Superman. 

Getting  Married. 
*STETSON  (Mrs.  Perkins  Gilman) :  Woman  and  Economics. 

The  Man-made  World. 

STOCKER,  HELEN  :  Die  Liebe  und  die  Frauen. 
TARDE  :      La      Morale      sexuelle.        (Archives      d'anthropologie 
criminelle.) 


396  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

•THOMPSON,  HELEN  B.  :  The  Mental  Traits  of  Sex. 
TILT  :  Elements  of  Health  and  Principles  of  Female  Hygiene. 
TOPINARD  :  Anthropologie  g6neVale. 
WARDLAW,   R.  :    Lectures  on   Female   Prostitution ;   its   Nature, 

Extent,  Effects,  Guilt,  Causes,  and  Remedy. 
*WEININGER,  OTTO  :  Sex  and  Character. 
*  WELLS,  H.  G. :   First  and  Last  Things. 
A  Modern  Utopia. 
Marriage. 

WOLLSTONECRAFT,  MARY  :  Vindication  of  the  Rights  of  Women. 


INDEX 


ADOPTION  of  children,  205,  358 
Adultery,  279,  341 

among  primitive  peoples,  132, 

136,  148,  149,  160,  165 

in  Babylon,  206 

in  Egypt,   189,   191 

in  Greece,  218,  219-220 

in  Rome,  230,  238 

/Eschines,  his  dialogue  on  Aspasia, 

224-225 
Affectability  of  women,   296,   308- 

399.  317 
Africa,    the    maternal    family    in, 

162-164 
power  of  Royal  Princesses  in, 

161-162 

Alladians  of  Ivory  Coast,    164 
Amazons,  228 

Ambel   anak   marriage,    152 
American  Indians.     See  Iroquois 
Amphibians,   56 
Animals,      courtship      and      love 

among,    77,   78-79,    80,    81,   82, 

88-99 
the  family  among,  78,  102,  103 

varied   forms   of    the    sexual 

association  among,  55,  82,  87-88, 
in,  113 

variation  in  parental  care  of 

offspring  among,  57,  80,  82,  108- 
iii 

Arabs,  divorce  among  the  ancient, 

MS.    '54 

traces    of     the     mother-age 

among  the,  153-154 

Argus  pheasant,  courtship  of,  97 
Arrogance  of  modern  woman,  270, 

305,  326,  362 
Art     in     relation     to    the     sexual 

impulse,  324 


Artistic   impulse   in   women,   308- 

3J4 
Arts,  woman's  entrance  into  the, 

3H-3.I7 

Asceticism    among     early     Chris- 
tians, 239,  323-324 

-  later  change  in,  325-326 

-  evils  of,  324,  327 

-  value  of,  324 

Ascetics'   attitude   towards  sexual 

love,  327 

Asexual  reproduction,  36-39 
Aspasia,   224-226 
Athens.    See  Greece 
Australia,  communal  marriage  in, 

146-147 
Australians,   West,  122 


B 

Babylon,    position    of    women    in 

ancient,  201-210 

—  marriage  and  divorce  in,  204- 

207 
-  traces  of  the  mother-age  in, 

201-202 

-  trade  in,  207-210 
Bachofen  on  the  mother-age,  142 
Bambala  tribe,  165 
Basanga  tribe,  165 
Basques,  158 
Basso  Komo  tribe,  165 
Bastardy  laws,  348-349 
Bavili  tribe,  163 
Beauty-tests,   91,  95,  98-100,    104, 

o105 

Beena  marriage,    153 

Bees,  43  et  seq.,  59 

Biology,    importance    of,    13,    14, 

33-35 

Birds,   love  amongst,   59,   87,   91, 
in,  114 


397 


.398 


INDEX 


Birds,      amorous      preference     of 
females,  HI 

aesthetic  perception  of,  88,  89 

family  amongst,   59,  87,  88, 

102-103,  107,  no,   113 

female   superiority   amongst, 

58,  90,  95,  105,  249 

love  battles  87,  90 

love     dances,     parades     and 

songs,  91,  92-99 

monogamy  amongst,  91 

secondary    sexual    characters 

of,  88,  92,  loo-ioi,  104  et  seq. 

sex  equality  amongst,  59,  90, 

105  et  seq.,  249 
Bloch,   Iwan,  on  promiscuity,   120 

(note) 

—  on    the     discoveries    of     M. 
Currie,  300 

—  on  woman's  influence  on  the 
arts,  307 

Borneo  native  tribes,  123 
Botocudos  tribe,  122 
Brain,  sexual  differences  in,  276 
Bride-price,    154   (note),    165,    173, 

183,  204,  229 
Britain,  traces  of  the  mother-age 

in,  127 
Budding,  38 
Biicher,    Karl,   on   woman's  early 

poetic  activity,  306 
Burma,  high  status  of  women  in, 

I56-IS7 

marriage  system  and  divorce 

in,   157-158 


Canon  law,  240,  344,  354 

Canute ;  his  marriage  as  evidence 

of  mother-right,  127 
Celibacy,  324,  326,  328,  341,  382 
Cell-division,  35-39 
Certificate   of   health   before   mar- 
riage, 345 

Ceylon,  polyandry  in,   150 
Chastity,   165,   171,   189,  206,  219, 

223,  226,  255,  323,  324,  326,  327- 

328,  342,  373-374 
as  the  foundation  of  marriage, 

334.  338 
Child,  relation  to  the  mother,  23, 

27,  103,  168,  170 
rights  of  the,  9,  17,  255,  256- 

258,  340.  342,  345-346,  352,  355 


Child,  need  of  two  parents,  42,  95, 

"'.  35o.  358 

China,  traces  of  mother-age  in,  159 
Christianity,      its      influence     on 

women,  234,  267,  317-328 
in  connection  with  marriage 

and  divorce,  239,  240,  344,  354 
Cirripedes,     complemental     males 

among  the,  52 

Civilisation  and  sex,  113,  265-266 
Clandestine  transitory  loves,  341 
Clothing;  effect  of,  on  women,  277, 

303-304 

Cocotte,  the,  253,  303 
Concubinage,  189-191,  205,  230 
Connection    between    bodily    and 

spiritual  impulses,  323-324,  326 
Contract  marriage.    See  Marriage 
Conventional    lies   of    the    present 

day,   254  et  seq.,   258-261,   278, 

281 
Co-operation  among  animals,   82, 

IO2,    III 

Coquetry,  254,  255,  258 
Courtship  :  its  importance,  IOO-IH, 

252,  234-256 
Cruelty  in  relation  to  sex,  67,  266- 

267,  327 


Darwin  on  sexual  selection,    100- 

101 

Demi-monde,   366 
Differentiation  between  the  sexes  : 

its  importance,  101,  248-249,  257, 

261-263,  268,  273-276,  284,  290, 

293,  295-297 
Diotima,  223 
Disease   and   marriage,    345,    355, 

360-361 
Disinclination  for  marriage,  61-63, 

225-226,  267,  268-270,  335,  359 
Disproportion  in  numbers  between 

the  sexes,  278 
Divorce  among  primitive  peoples, 

132,  137,  148,  160 

—  in  Babylon,  205-207 

—  in  Burma,  157-158 

—  in  Egypt,   191-192,  356 
in  Greece,  220 

in  Rome,  233,  356 

—  attitude  of  Church  and  State 
towards,  354 

causes  for,  353,  354  et  seq. 


INDEX 


399 


Divorce   by  mutual  consent,   356, 

358. 

importance   of,    for    women, 

356«  359 

psychical,  355 

reform  of,  355-356 

Donaldson    on   high    character   of 

Roman  women,  239 
Duplex  sexual  morality,   171,  206, 
219,  226,  357 


riage  as  evidence  of  mother- 
right,  127 

Ethelbald,  King  of  W.  Saxons,  his 
marriage  as  evidence  of  mother- 
right,  127 

Eugenics,     18-19,     l65»    218,    283, 

3457346,  350.  355 

Euripides  on  women,  227 

Exchange  of  wives  among  primi- 
tive peoples,  132,  166,  170 

in  Sparta,  218 


Economic  factor  in  marriage,  171, 
215-216,  253,  282,  342-343,  345, 

346-347 
in  prostitution,  282,  362- 

363.  37° 

dependence  of  women,  23-24, 


253,  264,  280,  342 
Egg-cell.    See  Ovum 
Egoism   of   modern    woman,    270, 

305.  335.  3.62,  365,  380-381 
Egypt,     position     of     women     in 

ancient,   179-201 

—  concubinage  in,    189-191 

—  divorce  in,    191-192 

—  family  affection  in,    192-193, 
194-197 

marriage    contracts    in,    182- 

185,   186-191 
-  polygamy  in,   192 

traces  of  the  mother-age  in, 


185-186 

Ellis,   Havelock,  on  sexual  differ- 
ences, 21 

on  the  position  of  women  in 

Rome,  234 

—  on    the    artistic    impulse    in 
women,  297 

on  religious  sexual  perception, 


320 

Emancipation  of  woman,  4-8 
Emma,  her  marriage  with  Canute, 

127 

Emotivity  of  women,  309,  318 
Enfranchisement   of   women,    291, 

362,  379.  380 
Ennoblement  of  love,  347-348,  351- 

352,  383 
Environment,  influences  of,  15,  17, 

21,  273,  299-301,  313 
Erotic    element    in    religion,    317, 

319-326 
Ethelbald,  King  of  Kent,  his  mar- 


Facial  expression  and  sex,  311-312 
Factory  workers,  condition  of,  281- 

283,  287-288,  362-363 
Fairy     stories,     connection     with 

mother-rights,  121,  126 
Family,      among      animals.      See 

Birds  and  Animals 

primitive   peoples.      See 

Mother-age 

ancient  civilisation.     See 

Egypt,     Babylon,     Greece     and 

Rome 

Fanti  of  the  Gold  Coast,  163 
Father  in   relation   to  the   family, 

125,    164-167,    169,    171-175,  257 
Father-right.     See  Mother-age 
Fear  of  love  in  women,  264,  270, 

322,  323,  325-326,  369-370,  373- 

374.  382 

Female,  origin  of,  41-42 
Fertilisation,  40,  51,  53,  56,  60,  77 
Festivals,  connection  with  mother- 
right,  121 

Festivals,  religious,  320,  372 
Finery,   love   of,   in   women,    303, 

322,  365,  370 
Fishes,  love  among,  78 

—  parental  care  among,  57-58 
—  sex  differences  among,  57,  78- 

79 

Flirtation.     See   Coquetry 
Freedom  to  love  for  women,  279 
Freedom  to  work  for  women,  283 
Free-love,  a  criticism  of,  349-350 
Free-marriage.     See  Marriage 
Frigidity,  sexual,  260,  269-270,  369 
—  as  a  cause  of  prostitution, 

368-370,  371 
Fuegians,  122 
Future  of  woman,  377-385 


400 


INDEX 


Gallinaceae,  90,  265 

Gallon's  Law  of  Inheritance,  17 

Garos  tribe,  147 

Geddes     and    Thomson     on     the 

anabolic  character  of  the  female, 

54  (note) 
Genius  in  relation  to  woman,  301- 

3 '7 

Ghasiyas  tribe,   148 
Goddesses    in    forefront    of    early 

religions,    198,  222 
Greece,     position    of     women    in 

ancient,  210-227 

Athens,  subjection  of  women 

in,  216,  219-223,  265 

divorce  in,  220 

Hetairce,  222-226,  265 

marriage    and    sale    of 

bride,  220-221 

-  movement  of  revolt  in, 

226-227 

Homeric  women,  freedom  of, 

212-215 

—  Spartan  women,  freedom  of, 
216-219 

State  regulation  of  love,  217- 

218 

traces  of  the  mother-age  in, 

211  (note),  213,  219,  222 

Group-marriage.    See  Marriage 
Growth     and     reproduction.      See 

Reproduction 
Gyna;r;ocracy.    See  Mother-age 

H 

Haeckel  on  reproduction,  17,  35 

Hammurabi.  See  Babylon,  mar- 
riage and  divorce 

Hartland  on  mother-right,  126 
(note) 

Hassanyeh  arabs,   166-167 

Health  and  women,  157,  168-169, 
197,  215,  217,  284-286 

Health  in  relation  to  marriage. 
See  Disease 

Hebrews,  traces  of  the  mother-age 
among  the  ancient,  128-130 

Hellenic  love,  265 

Heredity,  importance  of,  17-20 

Hermaphroditism,  76-77 

Hindu  mountaineers,  149 

Hobhouse,  on  the  Egyptian  mar- 
riage contracts,  183  (note) 


Hobhouse,  on  the  high  character 

of  Roman  women,  139 
Hopis.     See  Pueblos 
Hunger  and  love,  75,  101 

I 

Illegitimacy,    160,    190,    205,    218, 

342.  347,  348-349 
Impurity,   267,   323-327 
India,  the  maternal  family  in,  147- 

148 
Individual    responsibility    in    love, 

257,   35!-353>  358-359 
Infantile  mortality,  348,  378 
Inferiority  of  the   female,    12,   20, 

23,  25,  47-49.  53-55 
-  of  the  male,   44,  49-53,   56, 

57-58,  65-67,   104  et  seq. 
Insects,  love  of,  82 
Instinct  in  woman,  296-297 
Intellect  in  woman.    See  Mind 
Intellectual  activity  and  sex,  324, 

325-326 
Intellectuals  among  women,  61-63, 

268-270,  325-326 
Ireland,    traces   of   mother-age   in 

ancient,  128 
Iroquois,  131-135,  141-142 

forms    of    marriage   among, 

132,.  134 

high  status  of  women  among, 

132,  133.  134.  141-142 
maternal  family  among,  131- 

132,  134 

tribal   customs  among,    131, 


133,  134-135 


J 


Japan,  traces  of  the  maternal 
family  in,  158-159 

Judith,  her  marriage  with  Ethel- 
bald,  127 


Kammalaus,  polyandry  among,  149 
Kasias  tribes  of  India,  147 
Key,  Ellen,  on  the  spiritual  char- 
acter of  woman's  love,  258 
—  on  free-love,  349 


Labour  and  women,  278-292 

division  of,  between  the  sexes, 

22-24,  280 


INDEX 


401 


Labour  of  primitive  women,    168- 

169,  264 
of  Spanish  women,  284-286 

significance  of,  301-302,  303- 

304.  379 
sweated  workers,  281-283 

woman's     exemption     from, 

23.  3H 
Lais,  224 

Lending  wives,  218 
Leontium,  224 

Lie  of  marriage,  341 

Limit  of  growth,  36 

Loango,  163 

Love,  comparison  between  animal 

and  human,    119-121 
comparison  between  woman's 

love  and  man's,  260,  373-374 

elementary  phenomena  of,  75 

—  purposes  of  the  individual  and 

of  the  race  in  relation  to,   121, 

338-340 

significance  and  ennoblement 

of,    99-100,    322,    327-328,    352, 
369,  374.  382,  383 

—  wastage  of,  322,  327,  373,  340 
Love  and  beauty,  100 
Love  and  marriage.     See  Marriage 
Love-free.    See  Free-love 
Love's  choice.    See  Sexual  selection 
Lust  in  relation  to  love,  340,  341, 
372 

-  theological  conception  of,  324 
et  seq. 
Lycurgus,  laws  of,  217-218 

M 

Madagascar,  traces  of  the  mother- 
age  in,  160-161 
Maine,  Sir  Henry,  on  the  Roman 

marriage  law,    239-240 
Malays  of  Sumatra,  152-153 
Male,  origin  of  the,  42,  49,  52 
Male-cell.    See  Spermatozoon 
Male-force,   assertion   of,   75,    104, 

108,   124,   125,   164,   172,  247 
Male-tyranny,    mistaken    view    of, 

24,  158,   172-173,  174 
Mammals,  love  among  the.     See 

Animals. 
Man  as  the  helper  of  woman,  309, 

35°.  384 

Man  as  the  slave  of  woman,  67, 
267,  327 


Mariana  Islands,  154-155 
Marriage,  331-352,  360 

certificates  for,  345 

coercive,  332, 335, 341,  353,  359 

economic  factor  in,   195-196, 

256,  342-343,  345,  347 

the  ideal,  340,  349,  351,  352 

individual  end  of,  338-340 

history  of,  343-345 

love  an  essential  part  of,  350- 

352,  353-354,  358 
objects  of,  331-332,  334 

racial   end  of,    334,    337-339, 

354 

reform  of,   331-333,  335~336, 

351-352,  353,  359 

among    animals.      See    Ani- 
mals 

customs      among      primitive 

peoples.    See  Mother-age 

in  relation  to  practical  moral- 
ity,   335-336,    337-338,    347-348, 
3497350,  354 

in    relation    to    prostitution, 


341-342,  359-361,  369,  371,  374 
Maternal  instinct,  61,  261  et  seq. 

sacrifice,  263  et  seq. 

Matriarchal    family    among    bees, 

62 

Matriarchy.    See  Mother-age 
Maupassant  on  woman,  327 
Memory,  sexual  differences  in,  294- 

295 
Men,  emancipation  of :  this  must 

be  done  by  women,  269,  292 
Menomini  Indians,  145 
Mental  mobility  of  woman,  311 
Mind,  sexual  differences  in,   292- 

317 
Mis-differentiation  of  women,  268 

et  seq. 

Misogany,  267 
Monogamy,  340-341,  352-353 

among    animals    and    birds. 

See  Animals  and  Birds 

Moral  codes,  343-344,  353 
Morality,  ideal,  335,  350,  352 

-  practical,   331,   335-336,   351- 

352 

traditional,  335,  352 

Mother-age,  119-175 
—  evidence   in   support   of   the, 
121-122,  143-146 

periods  of  the,  122-125 

traces  among  civilised  peoples 


102 


INDEX 


Of,  125,  130,  158-159,  185,  201- 
202,  211,  228 

Mother-age,  marriage  and  court- 
ship customs  during,  132,  135- 
'37.  138,  139,  MS.  147-M8,  149. 
'5».  JS3.  154.  165 

—  beginnings     of     marriage, 
visiting  by  night,    159,    169 

-  capture-marriage,  148,  172 

—  exchange-marriage,  166,  170, 

173 

—  group-marriage,  124,  146,  151 
(note),   169 

-  purchase-marriage,    155,   165, 
166,  173 

monogamy,  137,  138,  139 

—  polyandry,  149-151 

position  of  the  mother,   122, 

123,  124,  127,  131-132,  133,  136, 

137,  139-M6,  148,  153,  154.  163. 
168-171,   173-174 
father,     124,     125,     132, 

!34.  137,  138,  144-  iSL  152-  155. 

163,  169,  171 
maternal  uncle,  124,  132, 

140,  144,  152,  163,  164,  173 
children,    134,    138,    147, 

149,  152,  164,  165 

transition  to  father-right,  134, 

147,  148,  155,  168 

establishment  of  father-right, 

147,  164  et  seq.,  171-174 
Motherhood,  endowment  of,  62,  348 

free,  265,  279 

importance  of,  7,  9,  27,  255, 

265,  312,  314 

• responsibility  of,  18-19,  257, 

258,  263,  283,  35J-352,  358,  381- 
382 

Mother-right  united  with  father- 
right,  175,  187 

Music  and  women,  300-301,  306- 
308 

Musquakies.    See  Iroquois 

N 

Nature  or   inheritance,    15-19,   25, 

273,  309 

Nayars  of  Malabar,   151-152 
Need    for    sexual    variety    among 

animals,  111-112,  121,  251 

men,   112,   121,  371-373 

Nurture  or  environment,  15-17,  19- 

20,  273,  309 


Nutrition  and  reproduction,  17,  35 
connection  with  sex,  41-44 


Obstetric  frog,  80 

Octopus,  courtship  of  the,  81 

One-sexed   world,   the   idea  of  a, 

268 

Orgy,  the  use  of  the,  319-320,  372 
Ostrich,  love-dances  of  the,  94 
Ovum,  36,  39,  53,  250 


Parasitic  females,  53-55 

-  males,  51-53,  77 
Paradise  bird  of  New  Guinea,  89 
Parenthood.      See    Motherhood 
Parthenogenesis,  49 
Passion,  importance  of,  in  woman, 

319,  326,  370,  374 
Passivity,  alleged,  of  female,  65-69, 

250-253 
Patriarchal  subjection  of  women, 

10,  22,  23-24,  173,  204,  212,  215, 

219-221,  226,  229,  256,  264-265, 

280 
Patriarchy.   See  Father-right  under 

Mother-age 
Pearson,  Karl,  on  the  mother-age, 

126-127  (note) 

on  variability  in  women,  299 

Pericles,  223,  224 

Periodicity  of  woman  in  relation  to 

work,  312-313 
Phalaropes,  reversal  of  the  r61e  of 

the  sexes  among,  107,  249,  265 
Picts,    traces    of    the    mother-age 

among,   127 
Pit-brow  women,  284 
Plants,  sex  in,  50  (note) 
Plato  on  women,  226 
Polyandry,  149-154 
Polygamy,   192,  204,  230,  279 
Position  of  the  sexes,  early.     See 

Origin  of  the  sexes 
Promiscuity,    belief    in    an    early 

period  of,  120  (note),  121 
Primitive  human  love,  119-121 
Primitive  woman.    See  Mother-age 
Prostitutes,  342,  360,   364-368 
Prostitution,   341,   359-374 

causes   of,   282-283,   362-365, 
373-374 


INDEX 


403 


Prostitution,     remedies    for,    363- 

364,  369,  371,  374 
Protozoa,  37  et  seq. 
Pueblos  tribes,   137-139 
Purity,    the   ideal  of,    for  women, 

373-374 


Race,  the,  its  significance  in  rela- 
tion to  woman,  27,  44,  63,  257, 
283,  289,  290,  354,  383-385 

Re-birth  of  woman,  20,  27,  63,  257, 
283,  290,  378,  385 

Religion  and  sexuality,  317,  319- 

323 

-  and  women,  157,  317-328 
Reproduction,      theory     of.       See 

Origin   of  Sex 

Reproductive  cells.  See  Ovum  and 
Spermatozoon 

Reptiles,  love  amongst,  79 

Responsibility  in  the  sexual  rela- 
tionships. See  Love,  ennoble- 
ment of 

Revolution  in  the  position  of 
woman,  1-2,  4,  7-9,  27,  280,  379- 
380.  3.82 

Revolutionary  forces,  280,  281,  291 

Rome,  position  of  women  in,  227- 
242 

divorce  by  consent  in,  233 

—  evolution  of  marriage  in,  229- 

233 

-  high  status  of  women  in  later 
periods  in,  234-238 

-  influence   of   Christianity   on 
position  of  women  in,  235,  239- 
240 

-  licentiousness,  alleged  in,  238- 
239 

-  traces  of  the  mother-age  in, 
228 


Sai.     See  Pueblos 

Santal  tribes,   148 

Sappho,  217,  301 

Schopenhauer  on  woman,  9,  267 

Sea-horse,  parental  care  of  males 
among,  80 

Secondary  sexual  characters,  12, 
48,  78  et  seq.,  88  et  seq.,  104 
et  seq.,  114,  248-256,  261-263, 
265,  268,  273-278,  292  et  seq. 


Seduction,  364-365 

Senecas.     See  Iroquois 

Sense   of   shame   in    woman.   2«, 

-  JO" 

326 

Sensibility  of  woman,  309  et  seq. 
Sen,  marriage  customs  of,  135-136 
Sex,  origin  of,  36,  41-43 
primary  office  of,  39-40,  73-74 

significance    of,    75,    99-102, 

114 

Sex-elements,  early  separation  of, 

76 
Sex-hatred,   evils  of,    24,   67,   266- 

267,  268-269,  288-289,  291,  326- 

327,  380-381 
Sex-hunger,  75,  99 
Sex-relationships  assume  different 

forms  to  suit  varying  conditions 

of  life,  103,  107,   111-113 
Sex-victims,  55 
Sexes,    early    position    of,    55,    73 

et  seq.,  249-250 
Sexual  abstinence.     See  Chastity 

antipathy,  215,  265,  266-267 

attraction,  215,  266 

crimes,  34,  65,  87,   112,  347 

instincts,  imperious  action  of, 

33-34.  59.  67,  73,  75,  88  et  seq., 
99,  101,  254,  261,  319,  326,  372 

reproduction.     See  Reproduc- 
tion 


selection,  75,  100  et  seq.,  104 

et  seq.,  114,  250,  254,  262 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  on  woman's  right  of 
selection  in  love,  65-66,  253 

-  on   economic   factor   in   pros- 
titution, 362-363 

Simcox    on     the    Egyptians,     193 

(note),   195,  202 
Slugs,  love  of,  77 
Snails,  love  organ  of,  77 
Socrates  on  love,  223 
Spain,  position  of  women  in,  286- 

287 

Sparta.    See  Greece 
Spermatozoon,  36,  49,  53,  251 
Spider,  courtship  of  the,  64  et  seq. 
Spores,  36 
Stickleback,  habits  of,  80 

-  paternal     care     of    offspring 
among,  80 

Sterility,  sin  of,  378-379 
Structural    modifications   to   adapt 

the  sexes  to  different  modes  of 

life,   107 


404 


INDEX 


Suffrage,  struggle  for,  9,  379-380, 

382-383 
Superiority  of  the  female,   56-58, 

66-68,  73,  90,  103,  124,  125,  249, 

267,  383-384 
Superiority  of  the  male,  10,  12-13, 

23-24.  47-48,  104,  249 
Surinam  toad,  Si 


Tadpoles,  43,  77 

Talent,   sexual  differences  in,   292 

ct  seq. 

Thargalia,  223 
Theodota,  223 
Thibet,  polyandry  in,  150 
Third-sex,  269-270 
Thomas  on  the  sexual  differences, 

274.  304 
Thomson,  J.  A.,  on  the  difference 

of  variability  in  men  and  women, 

298-299 
Thucydides  on  the  duty  of  women, 

223 

Todas  tribe,  149 
Transition,   present  period  of,   for 

women,    u,   263-264,   267,   280- 

281,  288,  289-290,  314-317,  325, 

333.  379.  38i,  384 
Tyrant  bird,  love  calls  of,  96 

U 

Ulpian,  the  jurist,  on  a  double 
standard  of  morality  for  the 
sexes,  240 

Union,  free.    See  Free-love 
Use  of  male  to  female,  40,  44,  103, 
250,  309-  384 


Virginity,  171,   189,  344 
Visions,  sexual,  320-321,  323 
Volvox,  41-42 

W 

Wallace  on  sexual  selection,  100 

Wamoima  tribe,  163 

Ward,    Lester,    theory    of    gynae- 

ocracy,  49,  50  (note),  107,  108 
Wayao  and  \fang 'anja  tribes,  165 
Weininger  on  woman,  26,  267 
Wells,  H.  G.,  on  marriage,  305 

-  on  love  and  religion,  322 
Wild  duck,  love  of  a,  111-112,  250 
Witchcraft,        connection         with 

mother-rights,   127  (note) 
Woman  and  man,  differences  be- 
tween, 9,  12,  14,  16,  21,  47,  199- 
201,  247  et  seq.,  273  et  seq.,  292 
et  seq.,  319-320,  322,  326 
Woman    and    sexuality,    26,    267, 

269,  304,  325,  327 
Woman  and  work.     See  Labour 
Woman's  dependence  on  man,  264, 
269,  290,  381 

emancipation,  8,  24,  269,  279, 

289-290,    302,   305,   316,   379   et 
seq. 

-  influence,  10,  266 

place  in   the  sexual  relation- 


ship, 251,  261-262,  264-265,  267, 
270,  279-280,  383-384 

responsibility,     258,    263-264, 

283,    291-292,    351-352,    360    et 
seq.,  374,  381  et  seq. 

right  of  selection  in  love,  65 

et  seq.,  252-256,  309 

Wyandots.     See  Iroquois 


Variation   in  the  two  sexes,  297- 

300 
Variety.      See    Need    for    Sexual 

Variety 
Virgin  birth,  stories  of,   126,  202, 

228  (note) 


Xenophon's  ideal  wife,  223 


Zufli  Indians.    See  Pueblos 


Richard  Clay  *•  Sons,  Limited,  London  and  Bvnfay. 


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